U.S. citizen Saad Almadi freed by Saudi Arabia after being held for critical tweets
A U.S. retiree held in Saudi Arabia over critical tweets has been freed months ahead of schedule, his son said, a day after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appeared hand-in-hand with President Donald Trump at the White House.
“Our family is overjoyed that, after four long years, our father, Saad Almadi, is finally on his way home,” his family said in a statement posted Wednesday by his son Ibrahim on X.
Riyadh authorities jailed and then banned Saad Almadi, 75, from leaving the country two years ago, downgrading his previous 19-year sentence that was handed down in 2021.
Ibrahim told CNN that his father, originally from Boca Raton, Florida, was arriving in Philadelphia on Thursday, crediting the Trump administration for his release.
“This day would not have been possible without President Donald Trump and the tireless efforts of his administration,” the family said in a statement, also thanking Trump official Sebastian Gorka.
“No American Left Behind. That is President realDonaldTrump’s promise from Day One. @WhiteHouse,” Gorka said, reposting the family statement.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has touted his deal-making abilities, freeing several Americans imprisoned in other countries, including six Americans from Venezuela, and others from Russia, Afghanistan and Belarus.
Almadi’s release came as Trump bolstered U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia, the once deeply conservative, oil-dependent theocracy that the 40-year-old crown prince, is trying to transform into a modern and more moderate global power.
Trump was attending a Saudi investment conference in Washington as the news emerged that Almadi was free.
A retired project manager who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s, Almadi had written over a dozen tweets critical of the Riyadh government.
He was arrested in Nov. 2021 during a visit to Saudi Arabia for a medical procedure, and sentenced to prison on terrorism-related charges.
The kingdom freed him after more than a year in prison, dropped his charges to “cyber crimes,” and prevented him from leaving the country until next March.
One of the tweets Saudi authorities confronted Almadi over discussed the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, his family has said.
His early release comes after Trump defended the crown prince over the murder of the Washington Post columnist, disavowing the findings by his own intelligence agencies and telling reporters in the Oval Office that bin Salman “knew nothing about it.”
The CIA concluded that the crown prince had ordered the killing.
Bin Salman has cracked down on internal criticism, with human rights defenders inside and outside the country warning about unfair trials, arbitrary arrests and executions.
While Almadi may have been released, hundreds remain jailed or detained in the kingdom, including journalists, activists, scholars, and aid workers, human rights groups say.
Bin Salman has worked hard to repair his country’s image on the global stage, pressing his modernization drive while wielding the kingdom’s power as the world’s largest oil producer and a growing diplomatic player.
On Tuesday, the crown prince made his first visit to the White House since the murder and received an elaborate welcome that included a military flyover and an honor guard on horseback — as well as Trump’s rhetorical defense.
Despite the crown prince’s success in partially modernizing Saudi society and the economy, the country of 33 million people remains a monarchy where expressing dissent can be dangerous.
When asked about Khashoggi’s murder on Tuesday, the crown prince promised that “we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again.”
“It’s been painful for us in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
