The Saudi authorities have released Princess Basmah Bin Saud and his daughter, detained without charge for almost three years in the capital, a human rights organization reported this Saturday.
Basmah Bin Saud, a 57-year-old businesswoman, was arrested in March 2019 and in April 2020 she was pleaded to King Salmán and the Hered Prince Mohamed Bin Salmán who will release her for reasons of health.
The princess "and his daughter Suhud [...] were released," the AQST organization for human rights on Twitter. "She was denied the medical attention she needed against conditions that potentially threatened her life," the group said.
"At no time during his arrest, he spoke charges against her," he added. The Saudi authorities have not commented on the case.
Princess Basmah was stopped shortly before a trip to Switzerland to receive medical treatment, according to a source close to the family. She did not reveal the type of illness she suffered.
Basmah is a prominent member of the royal royal family that for years spoke without fear and asked for reforms. She is the little daughter of King Saud, who ruled the country between 1953 and 1964, and had more than a hundred children.
Prince Mohamed Bin Salman has been considered a reformer since he was appointed by his father, King Salman, in June 2017. Since then, he has ordered several reforms such as allowing women to drive or the flexibilization of the rules granted authority to authority Men about women in their family.
But the authorities have also undertaken a campaign against critics with power and potential opponents, from religious to activists for women's rights, even when it comes to members of the royal family.
Princess Basmah was detained in the prison of Al Hair, where numerous political prisoners are imprisoned. In a written testimony sent to the United Nations in 2020, the AFP news agency had access to, the family of it stated that the princess had been detained because of a large part of his "criticisms open to abuses" committed in Saudi Arabia.
In March 2020, the Royal Guard stopped the brother and nephew of King Salman, accused of having fostered a coup d'état against the heir Prince, according to several sources.
Fruit of Saud's marriage with Syria Jamila Merhi, the princess grew up in Beirut, the Cosmopolitan Capital of Lebanon until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1975 forced his family to seek refuge in the United Kingdom. She studied Medicine, Psychology and English Literature at Beirut Arab University. At the end of the 1980s she married a Saudi, member of the family to the Sharif. The couple, who had five children, ended divorcing in 2007.
He established a chain of restaurants and a media consultant in the kingdom and devoted his efforts to the field of humanitarian aid. In 2013 she denounced an attempt to blackmail for a stolen audiovisual material from her's computer in which she appeared smoking and throwing a kiss without looking veil.
Date Of Update: 08 January 2022, 14:36
