A former senior Saudi security official has made a startling claim in an interview with “60 Minutes”: that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “boasted that he could kill” the late former monarch King Abdullah.
Saad Al-Jabri, who served as the No. 2 intelligence official in Saudi Arabia, said the exchange took place in 2014, before the crown prince’s father King Salman ascended the throne.
At the time of the exchange, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman held no senior role in government but was the gatekeeper to the royal court of his father, The Associated Press reported.
Al-Jabri said that the crown prince made the comments in a meeting with former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was the Saudi interior minister at the time.
“He told him, ‘I want to assassinate King Abdullah. I get a poison ring from Russia. It’s enough for me just to shake hand(s) with him and he will be done,’” Al-Jabri told Scott Pelley in an interview for “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday.
He alleged that Saudi intelligence took the threat seriously and that the matter was handled internally within the royal family.
However, he added that two copies of that video meeting still exist, and he claimed to know their location.
The Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately get back to The Hill’s request for comment.
The Saudi government told CBS News that Al-Jabri is “a discredited former government official with a long history of fabricating and creating distractions to hide the financial crimes he committed.”
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman ascended to the throne in January 2015 after his half-brother, King Abdullah, died of natural causes.
Al-Jabri also said in the CBS interview that he was targeted by a Saudi assassination team in mid-October 2018, while living in Canada.