A former Saudi intelligence official, a top official living in exile in Toronto has filed an explosive lawsuit against the Saudi crown prince.
He alleges that in 2018 the prince sent a group of Saudi hit-man to Toronto to find and kill him and that it was thwarted at Pearson Airport.
These allegations have not been proved in court. Here are some details -
Well this is a story that definitely won't improve the already fractious relationship between Canada and Saudi Arabia. A lawsuit filed in district court of Washington D.C, alleges that the Saudi government tried to kill a prominent dissident in Toronto. At the same time as Saudi government agents murdered and dismembered Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington post columnist and Saudi dissident in the Saudi
consulate in Istanbul turkey.
Essentially we're talking here about a person Dr Assad Al Jabri a former Saudi intelligence agent who was himself a member of Saudi Arabia's very repressive police state, but who fell out with the current government because of his association with the former crown prince Mohammed Bin Nayaf, who was deposed and has now been imprisoned by his younger nephew Mohammed bin Salman.
MBS has taken control of Saudi Arabia effectively sidelining the 84 year old king Salman and running the country with an iron hand which includes the pursuit of Saudi dissidents around the world and the imprisonment of their family members in Saudi Arabia to try to pressure them to come home and that also is an element of this case. Dr Saad Al-Jabri, who lives in Toronto, who has some of his adult children with him in Canada but who has others in Saudi Arabia, who have been detained by the Saudi government in what he says is an effort to extort him to go home where he can be killed by crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman,
MBS has been trying to pressure him to leave Canada and return to Saudi Arabia for a couple of years. When those efforts didn't work according to this lawsuit filed in Washington D.C.
The Saudi government sent a team or a hit squad which was very similar to the one that it sent to turkey to murder Jamal Khashoggi. According to the lawsuit those agents attempted to enter through Pearson Airport separately on tourist visas but were detected by Canadian authorities, who figured out that the group were in fact traveling together despite their attempt to pass as separate tourists and who prevented them from entering the country with the exception of one of the group who was traveling on a diplomatic passport.
