Former MBS adviser Saud al-Qahtani in a photo taken from his now closed Twitter account @saudq1978. (Credit: @saudq1978)
For the first time since the suspected orchestration of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, the former right-hand man of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), Saud al-Qahtani, made a public appearance in the port city of Jeddah.
On Monday, a video capturing the event went viral. Qahtani was seen walking hand-in-hand with his uncle, Ahmad al-Obaikan, real estate developer and investor. They were accompanied by a group of around a dozen people.
The scene garnered both criticism and praise.
“It seems that he is mentally and physically devastated, but that is very little compared to what he has done to innocent people,” Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancée at the time of his murder, commented via Twitter. She had been waiting for Khashoggi outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, while he was murdered and dismembered inside. Kashoggi’s remains were never found.
Meanwhile, other internet users appealed to Twitter owner Elon Musk to unblock Qahtani’s account, which was suspended after Khashoggi’s murder.
In the aftermath of the crime, Qahtani was removed from the royal court and placed under house arrest. MBS’ former adviser had become a nuisance, and the international community was ostracizing Saudi Arabia over the crown prince’s presumed responsibility for the murder.
Cleared by the Saudi judiciary
Qahtani, who was banned from entering the United States, the United Kingdom and other European countries as a result, was one of 17 Saudis sanctioned by the US Treasury for the murder of Khashoggi, who was a columnist for The Washington Post.
But in Saudi Arabia, a court of law cleared Qahtani in December 2019. His name has also come up in several other cases of human rights violations.
He is accused of playing a key role in the Ritz Carlton affair, where members of the Saudi royal family were kidnapped in 2017.
Qahtani is also said to have tortured the feminist activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who was imprisoned in 2018 after demonstrating for women’s right to drive.
He also earned the moniker “Lord of the Flies” for allegedly commanding an army of 3,000 trolls (electronic profiles specifically created to fuel controversy and discord on the internet) to target dissidents and anti-regime critics.
It may still be premature to conclude whether or not the footage signals Qahtani’s re-entry into the Saudi public sphere. MBS, during a visit to Paris in 2022, successfully re-established his international standing. Qahtani’s appearance comes in this context of smooth relations.
While MBS has cultivated close ties with China and established an oil partnership with Russia, US President Joe Biden has set aside his previous aspirations of isolating Saudi Arabia as a “pariah state.” This was evident when the US President visited Jeddah last July, amid soaring oil prices driven by the conflict in Ukraine.
Prior to that, French President Emmanuel Macron made a groundbreaking move by visiting the crown prince in December 2021, becoming the first Western leader to extend an invitation to him after the Khashoggi affair.
Now, for the second time within a year, the crown prince is on an official visit to France. This marks his reemergence on the international scene amid rapid modernization efforts taking place in the kingdom.
MBS is presenting himself as a new persona — that of a pragmatic young prince, embodying a fresh approach.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour. Translation by Sahar Ghoussoub.
