Deleted Tweet Drives Allegations That Detained Saudi Rival Quietly Disposed Of By MbS

In March we noticed that “conveniently” at a moment the world’s attention was focused on surviving and defeating the spread of coronavirus, it appeared that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) took the ‘opportunity’ to initiate a Riyadh Ritz-Carlton 2.0 round-up of rivals within the royal family — hearkening back to the first headline-grabbing ‘house arrest’ of scores of princes and top officials in 2017. 

Only this time it barely made a dent in global media coverage, given it’s hard to compete with a world-altering pandemic. The Wall Street Journal did report on a March 6th incident which has received little attention since: black-clad commandos had raided the homes of two prominent royals close to the throne — namely, the ageing King Salman’s brother, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al Saud, and more importantly the 60-year old Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (often referred to as MBN). The move against him was described at the time (as usual) as conspiracy to mount a coup against the king and de facto ruler MbS. 

Since then the powerful MBN, who had been briefly named crown prince prior to the role being controversially bestowed on MbS hasn’t been heard from. He had previously spent time as minister of the interior, a very high-level post with direct oversight over troops and Saudi intelligence. He had also long been considered a close ally to the United States and US intelligence. But now a bizarre episode involving a statement posted by Saudi Arabia’s Prison Authority, but quickly deleted, gives clues into bin Nayef’s fate.

The now-deleted statement posted on Twitter said the senior prince was transferred to intensive care after suffering a heart attack. Al-Jazeera describes the strange attempt to quickly retract the eye-opening statement via the official account:

The tweet, which was published in the early hours of Sunday morning, denied the death of the senior royal, adding that a specialized medical team was working around the clock to attend to him.

After the tweet was removed, the Prison Authority posted another tweet saying that the security of its account had been breached, suggesting that the first post about the former crown prince has been published by hackers.

Saudi state-funded media further tried to assure the public the Prison Authority’s Twitter account had be hacked. 

Importantly, this all comes amid widespread rumors that Nayef is either dead or so sick as to be nearly so. And now the deleted tweet incident and subsequent PR damage control is driving speculation that MbS actually wanted MBN to expire quietly. Al Jazeera continues:

Sunday’s series of tweets sparked controversy among Saudi activists, some of whom raised questions about the wellbeing the crown prince. Some said the posts may have been aimed to pave the way for the senior royal family member’s death.

Meanwhile, an account called Prince Mohammed bin Nayef’s adviser posted a series of tweets saying that the de-facto Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) “wanted to see Mohammed bin Nayef dead as a result of medical negligence, but after news leaked to the family that the prince’s health was deteriorating, MBS was forced to allow the medical team to treat him.”

It added that bin Nayef’s health has been deteriorating for more than a week.

Critics of Riyadh’s response have noted that if the Prison Authority’s official Twitter account had really been hacked or compromised, it wouldn’t have been able to regain control of it so fast. 

Saudi activists and observers questioned the response from the Prison Authority, saying that if its account had been hacked, it would have been impossible to recover it so quickly.

“I wonder if a security breach or a prelude [to announcing the death of the former crown prince],” one activist and critic cited in the report said. Another questioned: “Is this to pave the way for getting rid of bin Nayef while in custody?”

Indeed it would appear all too convenient if Nayef – long considered the most direct threat to MbS’ rule – were to suffer a “heart attack” and quietly perish in an intensive care unit a mere two months after being arrested.