‘We will fear no one’: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince purges rivals in major corruption crackdown

THE billionaire Saudi nicknamed “Dopey Prince” by Donald Trump antagonised the President on Twitter. One of the President’s new best friends just delivered payback.

US President Donald Trump speaks with Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office on Tuesday 14 March 2017. Picture: Mark Wilson/Pool via Bloomberg

BILLIONAIRE investor Alwaleed bin Talal, who was slapped with the nickname “Dopey Prince” by US President Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election, has been arrested as part of a major purge of Saudi Arabia’s elite.

The arrest of Prince Alwaleed, a prominent investor in companies including Twitter, Apple, Lyft and Citigroup, was part of a stunning crackdown on Saturday by the powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman which snared dozens of princes, military officers, businessmen and government ministers.

In December 2015, Prince Alwaleed slammed Mr Trump on Twitter, describing him as a “disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America” and urging him to withdraw from the US Presidential race.

Mr Trump hit back. “Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money,” he tweeted back to the world’s 45th richest person. “Can’t do it when I get elected.”

In November last year, two days after the shock election result, the Prince attempted to mend fences. “President elect @realDonaldTrump whatever the past differences, America has spoken, congratulations & best wishes for your presidency,” he tweeted.

.@realDonaldTrump
You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America.

Withdraw from the U.S presidential race as you will never win.

— الوليد بن طلال (@Alwaleed_Talal) December 11, 2015

Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money. Can’t do it when I get elected. #Trump2016

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2015

President elect @realDonaldTrump whatever the past differences, America has spoken, congratulations & best wishes for your presidency.

— الوليد بن طلال (@Alwaleed_Talal) November 9, 2016

It was unclear if the US had any advance word of the arrests.

Mr Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner and others made an unannounced trip recently to Riyadh. Earlier on Saturday, Trump said he spoke to King Salman, though the White House readout of that call did not include any reference to the impending arrests.

According to the LA Times, it was only after requests from reporters that the White House released the detailed readout of the conversation, which covered the New York City terror attack, Islamic State, Saudi purchases of US military equipment, and the interception of a missile attack against Riyadh from Yemen.

They also discussed the expected public offering of Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Aramco. On Saturday Mr Trump tweeted, “Would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange. Important to the United States!”

The arrests came just hours after the 32-year-old son of King Salman and heir apparent to the throne, who was the first Saudi official to visit the Trump White House earlier this year, was appointed head of a powerful new anti-corruption body.

“Laws will be applied firmly on everyone who touched public money and didn’t protect it or embezzled it, or abused their power and influence,” King Salman’s order said. “This will be applied on those big and small, and we will fear no one.”

While the royal order said the committee was established “due to the propensity of some people for abuse, putting their personal interest above public interest, and stealing public funds”, the sweeping arrests have widely been seen as the Crown Prince cementing his hold on power.

James M. Dorsey, a Gulf specialist and senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the crackdown followed a wave of earlier arrests of “scores of Islamic scholars, judges and intellectuals, whose views run the gamut from ultraconservative to liberal”.

“[The] dismissals and detentions suggest that Prince Mohammed, rather than forging alliances, is extending his iron grip to the ruling family, the military, and the national guard to counter what appears to be more widespread opposition within the family as well as the military to his reforms and the Yemen war,” he wrote.

“Beyond grandiose plans, Prince Mohammed has yet to deliver on the economic aspects of his reform plans articulated in his Vision 2030.

“Prince Mohammed has so far delivered on limited, headline-grabbing social changes such as lifting the ban on women’s driving and access to sports stadia needed for his economic reforms as well the encouragement of greater entertainment opportunities that contribute to economic growth and address grievances among youth who account for a majority of the kingdom’s population.

“He has yet to deliver on jobs in a country that has high un- and under-employment and whose population has been weaned on cradle-to-grave welfare.”

John Hannah from the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington told the Associated Press the move mirrored those of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who had used corruption charges “as a battering ram to consolidate his own power and authority”.

“[Prince Mohammed has] latched onto corruption as a way to consolidate his power and remake the regime in his image,” he said.

Former US ambassador Chas W. Freeman told The New York Times it was the “coup de grace of the old system”. “Gone. All power has now been concentrated in the hands of Mohammad bin Salman,” he said.

Brookings Institute senior fellow Bruce Riedel earlier this year described Mohammad bin Salman’s elevation to heir apparent by his father, replacing Mohammad bin Nayef, as a “study in transition, disorder, and discontinuity — not stability and order”.

“King Salman has already given his son unprecedented power,” he wrote. “His nickname is Mr Everything because he has been given control of the military, the economy (including the oil industry), and even control of the entertainment business.

“He has been the de facto foreign minister for the last two years, conducting all the important foreign policy issues and visits, including setting up President Donald Trump’s historic visit to the kingdom.”

The arrests were immediately hailed by pro-government media outlets, while the country’s cop council of Islamic clerics issued a statement saying Islamic sharia “commands that corruption be combated ... and fighting it is no less important than fighting terrorism”.

Coinciding with the arrests, another Saudi prince was killed along with several officials when a helicopter crashed near the country’s southern border with Yemen.

News channel Al-Ekhbariya announced the death of Prince Mansour bin Moqren, the deputy governor of Asir province and son of a former crown prince, Agence France-Presse reported, although the cause of the crash was not clear.

The Crown Prince has widely been criticised for his role overseeing the stalemated war against Houthi rebels in Yemen, which is now in the grip of what the United Nations has called the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster” with a deadly cholera epidemic killing one person every hour.

Former US peace negotiator Aaron David Miller has described Mohammed bin Salman as impulsive and dangerous. “[He] has driven the Kingdom into a series of royal blunders,” he wrote in a Politico article earlier this year, quoted by USA Today.

“Far from demonstrating judgment and experience, he’s proven to be reckless and impulsive, with little sense of how to link tactics and strategy. Sadly, he’s managed to implicate and drag the new Trump administration into some of these misadventures, too.”

— with Associated Press