Fmr. Saudi Official’s Family a Target State-Sponsored Murder

HISSAH AL-MUZAINI, CALLING ON SAUDI CROWN PRINCE TO RELEASE FAMILY MEMBERS: Imagine yourself, your dad has been targeted with hit squads, your siblings, they’re being imprisoned and accused of things they have never done. My husband, your husband been imprisoned, kidnapped and then tortured. I fear for my kids. I fear for waking every morning just to check everybody’s fine and what’s the new bad news.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Hissah al-Muzaini, let me just ask you to describe how and when your husband was taken and how he ended up in jail and what’s been happening to him for the last several years. What were the circumstances under which that happened?

AL-MUZAINI: We used to live in Dubai. In the airport — he was banned from traveling when we were visiting friends. That moment, we had to separate. I took my kids to shelter them, because I hesitated whether to stay with him or not. A month later, he was kidnapped. He was in enforced disappearance for a couple of months. Later on, when he came out of the Ritz-Carlton, we knew that he was imprisoned in several prisons. He was brutally tortured. I saw the marks on his body. He told me a lot of things you can’t imagine that.

AMANPOUR: You mentioned the Ritz-Carlton, and that famously was the place where a lot of the opponents basically were rounded up several years ago, in terms of they were accused of incorrectly and unfairly accumulating massive wealth, and the crown prince wanted that wealth to be given back to the nation. Is that what you’re talking about? Is that the Ritz-Carlton you’re talking about? And is that why your husband was brought in?

AL-MUZAINI: Exactly. That’s the Ritz-Carlton where my husband was, and he was forced under torture to sign off all his assets and wealth in order for his freedom. But that’s not the main reason. We all know the main reason is targeting my dad, because he was there. He was taken again last August 2020. And he’s under enforced disappearance. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know how he is. I don’t know if he’s been tortured again.

AMANPOUR: So, let me you — say that you’re absolutely sure that’s the reason he’s been taken in. The Saudi government, as we read and as I’ll reread now for you say that Sarah and Omar — those are your siblings, and we will talk about them in a second — charged and tried with money laundering and conspiracy to unlawfully escaped the kingdom. And your husband, Salem, was made to sign a settlement to handover his assets in an anti-corruption effort. You sort of talked about that. But that’s why they say, the kingdom, that your relatives have been rounded up, because of alleged crimes they have committed.

AL-MUZAINI: That’s not true. That’s a lie. They’re innocent. All of them are innocent, my husband, my sister, and brother and my father. They just — it’s a personal vendetta that MBS has against my father, and it’s involving family members in it.