Saudi king hosts CIA director a day after US charges two Saudis with espionage

November 8, 2019 by Joseph Fitsanakis

A day after the United States Department of Justice charged two Saudi citizens with engaging in espionage on American soil, Saudi officials hosted the director of the Central Intelligence Agency in Riyadh, reportedly to discuss “the longstanding Saudi-US partnership”.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, two Saudi men, both employees of the US-based company Twitter, were instructed by a member of the Saudi royal family to surrender the personal information of at least 6,000 Twitter users who posted criticism of the Saudi government on social media. As intelNews reported on Thursday, one of the men is under arrest, while the other managed to evade US authorities and is thought to be sheltered by the Saudi government.

It is believed that the member of the Saudi royal family who instructed the two men to carry out espionage was no other than Mohammed bin Salman, the oil kingdom’s crown prince. Wednesday’s developments marked the first time that US authorities have publicly filed espionage charges against Saudi nationals in America.

A day after the charges were filed in the US state of California, Gina Haspel, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was reportedly hosted by Saudi Arabia’s king Salman in Riyadh. In addition to Salman and Haspel, the meeting was attended by several senior Saudi officials, including Khalid al-Humaidan, who directs the kingdom’s General Intelligence Directorate. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, was also present at the meeting.

A tweet by the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington said that the meeting between Haspel and the Saudi officials revolved around “the longstanding Saudi-US partnership”. It also said that participants discussed “a number of regional and international developments”, but gave no further information. The state-owned Saudi Press Agency said simply that the meeting focused on “a number of topics of mutual interest”, but did not elaborate.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 08 November 2019 | Permalink