Lawyers for Saudi state-owned companies are seeking to enforce a Canadian freezing order of the assets of Mohammed Aljabri, son of Saad Aljabri, a former Saudi Arabian security official accused of embezzling US$3.47 billion.
The originating summons filed in the Cayman Islands Grand Court last week was brought on behalf of Sakab Saudi Holding and eight subsidiaries, which are owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
The companies, established and funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for domestic counterterrorism activities, allege in a civil suit in Ontario, Canada, that they were defrauded by former Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and his top aide Saad Aljabri.
The companies claim Aljabri used family members, in particular his son Mohammed, and other business associates and nominees to conceal his ownership of misappropriated assets in businesses and entities around the world.
Aljabri, a former intelligence chief and counterterrorism expert, who reportedly worked closely with the US Central Intelligence Agency, denies the charges, saying he gifted his legally obtained worldwide assets to his son Mohammed in 2017.
New East International Limited, the company named in the Cayman Islands summons, is owned by Mohammed Aljabri and controls several subsidiaries holding real estate and bank accounts in the United States and Bahrain. It was migrated from Guernsey to Cayman last year, according to the court filing.
Claim against Aljabri
The lawsuit in Ontario accuses Aljabri and 21 conspirators of syphoning money from the companies meant for anti-terror activities, such as security equipment purchases, paying informants and for operational costs, through a series of fraudulent transactions.
It named numerous properties around the world as ill-gotten gains.
The case is ongoing and none of the allegations have been proven.
But, in January 2021, the Canadian court granted a freezing order of the former security official’s worldwide assets based on a 150-page forensic report prepared for the plaintiffs by accounting firm Deloitte, as well as an affidavit from the chief executive of the plaintiffs’ holding company.
An attempt to have the so-called Mareva injunction lifted was rejected by the court in March 2021.
Superior Court Justice Cory Gilmore, in her judgment, said Aljabri, who now lives in exile in a $13 million mansion in Toronto, had not adequately explained any of the alleged fraudulent activities documented in the Deloitte report, nor “how he came to accrue hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, including bank accounts in Europe, Malta, the British Virgin Islands, the United States and Canada”.
Alleged political persecution, murder plot
Aljabri, in turn, claims he and family members are the victims of political persecution.
His patron, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, was deposed as heir to the throne by Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017 and he remains effectively under house arrest.
Aljabri said he fled the country fearing for his safety. Several of Aljabri’s family members, including two adult children, have been jailed by Saudi authorities for money laundering and conspiracy to escape the kingdom unlawfully.
In August 2020, the former intelligence official filed a lawsuit in a US district court, alleging that Crown Prince bin Salman had sent members of the Saudi security service’s so-called Tiger Team to Canada to kill him.
The alleged plot, shortly after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by a similar hit squad in Istanbul in October 2018, was purportedly thwarted by Canadian border police.
The Saudi government denied any such incident and said actions taken against Aljabri’s children and a son-in-law were not in retaliation against Aljabri. In addition, they had been afforded all their rights under Saudi law, it said.
The Canadian lawsuit claims that after the replacement of bin Nayef, a new director for Sakab Saudi Holding was appointed and financial audits revealed that about $3.5 billion had been stolen from the company and its subsidiaries. The plaintiffs allege more than $1 billion went to bin Nayef and that Aljabri fraudulently took almost $500 million.
Possible exposure of intelligence secrets
To enforce the freezing and information disclosure orders of the Canadian court, lawyers for Sakab filed suits in various countries where it is suspected Aljabri and his family have assets.
A condominium property in Malta, held by Cayman company Ten Leaves Management Ltd, has been frozen by the Maltese courts.
And eight apartments in Boston, Massachusetts, are held, according to court filings, by various companies owned by New East International Limited.
In the Massachusetts proceedings, Aljabri claimed in his defence that he helped establish Sakab with “the primary purpose of funding and undertaking clandestine and sensitive operations in partnership with the United States Government”.
Lawyers for Aljabri argued that he may have to reveal information about secret CIA operations as part of his defence.
The director of US National Intelligence, Avril Haines, subsequently filed a sworn declaration to invoke state secrets privilege to block the release of information in the case.
Without taking any position on the merits of the case or whether it should be dismissed, she said revealing information about US intelligence methods and activities would be damaging to US national security interests.
The judge ruled the proper assertion of state secrets privilege rendered the Aljabris unable to “fairly defend themselves” and dismissed the case in 2021.
The US Court of Appeals upheld that verdict this past Friday, 27 Jan., and declined to revive the case “just to indefinitely stay it while the Ontario litigation plays out”.
The Canadian case may yet take a similar turn. At the request of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, government lawyers filed a motion to prevent Aljabri from using classified information in his defence, and Canada’s Federal Court is determining whether any of the evidence is privileged.
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