A former senior Saudi intelligence official who has accused Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of trying to have him assassinated in 2018 has been placed under heightened security after a new threat on his life, a Canadian newspaper reported.
The Globe and Mail said that Canadian security services had been informed of a new attempted attack on Saad Aljabri, who lives at an undisclosed location in the Toronto region.
Aljabri served as a counterespionage chief under a rival prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, who was ousted in 2017 by Prince Mohammad.
The newspaper said that its source — someone “with knowledge of the situation” — would provide no further details on the more recent threat by Saudi agents.
Aljabri is now under protection by “heavily armed” officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as private guards, the news report said.
In a lawsuit filed on Thursday with a court in Washington, Aljabri accused Prince Mohammad of having sent a hit squad to Canada to kill and dismember him in 2018, the same fate that two weeks earlier befell Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey.
Aljabri’s suit said that he was wanted dead because he had intimate knowledge of Prince Mohammad’s activities that could sour the close relationship being fostered with US President Donald Trump’s administration.
Asked to comment on the Globe report, Mary-Liz Power, spokeswoman for Canadian Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair, directed a reporter to an earlier comment by Blair about the 2018 attempt.
“While we cannot comment on specific allegations currently before the courts,” he said then, “we are aware of incidents in which foreign actors have attempted to monitor, intimidate or threaten Canadians and those living in Canada.”
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