WASHINGTON (AP) — Saudi Arabia has forced a Florida retiree to try to renounce his American citizenship after jailing him over social media posts critical of the kingdom’s crown prince, according to the man’s son.
The retiree, 74-year-old Saad Almadi, is one of at least four dual Saudi-American nationals who accuse Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s government of pressuring them to give up their U.S. citizenship, a U.S.-based Middle East human rights group said.
The alleged tactic by a key strategic partner of the U.S., which has not been previously reported, tracks with similar efforts to silence even mild criticism, including the threat of imprisonment and exit bans like the one that has kept Almadi from returning to the U.S. after being released from more than a year in a Saudi prison.
“There are Saudi princes that come to the U.S. for routine medical checkups, so why can’t an American citizen return home for his health?” Ibrahim Almadi said of his father.
“It’s all because we don’t want to upset our ally’s feelings,” he said in an interview from Washington. “If this were Russia, Iran or North Korea, he would’ve been declared wrongfully detained months ago.”
The Saudi Embassy in Washington acknowledged receiving a request for comment on the allegations but did not otherwise respond. The Saudi government doesn’t recognize dual citizenship. It regularly rejects criticism of its actions, saying they are part of a multiyear crackdown on corruption, terrorism and other security threats.
The plight of the elder Almadi and others could complicate U.S. efforts to turn the page on tensions arising from the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
President Joe Biden in his 2020 campaign vowed to make pariahs out of Saudi royals after U.S. intelligence officials concluded that the crown prince authorized the killing of the U.S.-based journalist inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The prince has denied any involvement.
But once in office and confronted with a spike in gas prices that did lasting damage to support for Democrats, Biden softened his criticism. During a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2022, the president had an awkward fist bump with Prince Mohammed.
Saudi-U.S. relations are expected to warm further under President-elect Donald Trump, whose real estate empire and family have extensive business dealings with the world’s top oil exporter.
A retired project manager who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s, Almadi was arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2021, when he arrived on a planned two-week visit to see family. Saudi officials confronted him with tweets he had posted over the past several years in the U.S., including one about Khashoggi’s killing and another on the crown prince’s consolidation of power.
Almadi was quickly sentenced to more than 19 years in prison on terrorism-related charges stemming from the tweets. Saudi Arabia freed him after more than a year but imposed an exit ban that keeps him from returning to his home in Boca Raton, near Miami.
For months after his release, Almadi received menacing phone calls from men his son alleges were agents of the feared intelligence police, whose job it is to root out threats to the kingdom’s rulers. Then, last November, they summoned Almadi to a villa in Riyadh, where he was promised the exit ban would be lifted if he renounced his American citizenship, his son said.
Feeling helpless, Almadi signed a document and followed instructions to try to return his American passport to the U.S. Embassy, his son said.
By law, Americans seeking to relinquish their citizenship must follow a lengthy process, and U.S. officials must deem their actions voluntary. That had not happened in Almadi’s case, the State Department said, adding that he remains a U.S. citizen and receives consular support.
“The Department will continue to advocate for Mr. Almadi with the Saudi government and hope he is soon able to rejoin his family in the United States,” the agency spokeswoman said.
Abdullah Alaoudh, a senior director at the Middle East Democracy Center, a Washington-based human rights group, said he knew of three other dual U.S.-Saudi citizens who reported being pushed to give up their U.S. citizenship. He said they were not activists or vocal critics of the Saudi government.
Alaoudh said Almadi’s case appeared the most egregious: “They are kind of forcing him.”
The group wrote to the Biden administration in December to ask it to make a final push for the “immediate and unconditional release” of Americans, U.S. residents and their close relatives either imprisoned in Saudi Arabia or banned from traveling in what activists say are attempts to silence them.
Among those prevented from leaving is Aziza al-Yousef, a U.S. green-card holder and retired professor who was among several activists imprisoned in 2018 — and later released — over peaceful demonstrations and petitions to allow women to drive in the kingdom.
It’s unclear how Trump’s presidency will affect the handling of such cases, but his relations with Saudi leaders run deep.
The Trump Organization last month unveiled plans for a luxury high-rise apartment building in the coastal city of Jeddah. And a private equity firm controlled by Trump’s son-in-law and former White House adviser Jared Kushner received a $2 billion investment from the sovereign wealth fund controlled by the crown prince.
Two weeks after the U.S. election, Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk were spotted sitting alongside the head of the wealth fund at a UFC fight in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
Saudi Arabia is the most coveted prize in U.S. efforts to get Arab states to normalize relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords — a hallmark foreign policy achievement during Trump’s first presidency — and end the U.S. ally’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
The exit ban against Almadi in Saudi Arabia, and similar practices against dual nationals by China, are aimed less at extracting foreign policy concessions from the U.S. than arbitrary arrests by adversaries such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela. But they can damage relations.
“From a policy perspective, it’s very complicated for the U.S. to act when an ally is involved,” said Mickey Bergman, CEO of Global Reach, which works to secure the release of Americans imprisoned abroad.
That matters little to Almadi’s son. In March, he emailed several State Department officials, including the consular officer his father met in Riyadh, complaining about what he considered the lack of U.S. action to secure his father’s freedom.
“We can’t keep waiting when the ship is sinking,” he wrote in the email, which he provided to The Associated Press.
He decided to go public after spending his fourth New Year’s separated from his father.
“Words can’t describe it,” said the younger Almadi, who put his finance career on hold and moved to Washington to advocate for his father. “I used to focus on advancing my life, I’m still only 28. But now all I think about is what to do, how to act, what to say, and what not to say, to secure my dad’s release.”
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Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
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