Saudi accounts and media have launched a government-backed and targeted campaign - according to Reuters - accusing former Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef and his assistant Saad al-Jabri of corruption, in the latest move of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman to consolidate his influence within the ruling family.
On Friday, tweets began to attack Prince Muhammad bin Nayef - who was ousted and ousted as heir to the throne by Muhammad bin Salman, his cousin, in a coup inside the palace in 2017 - and also targeted his former aide in Saudi intelligence, Saad al-Jabri.
Two Saudi sources told Reuters - on condition of anonymity - that the campaign launched by it seems - supporters of the government aimed at influencing public opinion before the expected announcement of charges against Muhammad bin Nayef of corruption.
One source said they had been preparing documents against him since last March, adding that those behind the Twitter campaign wanted to "discredit him inside".
The second Saudi source said that the campaign appears to be receiving support from the government, as prominent personalities close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have worked to highlight these tweets.
Several Saudi newspapers, which weigh in the kingdom, on Sunday reported a report published by The Wall Street Journal last Friday, and quoted Saudi officials and government documents as saying that Al-Jabri was leading a network of officials who wasted $ 11 billion in funds The government is from a fund belonging to the Ministry of Interior.
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The Saudi Deterrence account - a prominent account that usually posts Tweets with pro-government content and has more than 1.2 million followers on Twitter - wrote that Muhammad bin Nayef had allowed "the corruption network run by al-Jabri to operate in suspicious ways."
Since Friday, I have used thousands of Twitter accounts called "The Fugitive Saad Al-Jabri" and "Corruption of Saad Al-Jabri."
Khaled, the son of al-Jabri, strongly denied the Wall Street Journal report, saying that his father had no control over the fund, and that Muhammad bin Nayef had "only freedom to dispose of it with a clear and absolute mandate from King Abdullah."
Reuters was not able to independently verify who was controlling the fund.
The storm of tweets comes at a time when King Salman, 84, entered a hospital in the capital Riyadh on Monday, and he suffers from cholecystitis, according to the Saudi Press Agency, and the government communication center refused to comment further on his condition.
Before his overthrow, Muhammad bin Nayef was seen as the most important competitor to the throne. He controlled the security forces in the country, developed close relations with Western intelligence services, and was still popular among the conservatives whom the crown prince marginalized.
The government communication center did not respond to a request for comment, and Reuters was unable to reach Prince Muhammad bin Nayef or his lawyer or to Al-Jabri to obtain comment from any of them.
Arrest and exile
The Saudi authorities arrested Muhammad bin Nayef last March, and he and two other prominent members of the royal family are being held in an undisclosed location. Al-Jabri lives in exile in Canada, but the Saudi authorities also arrested two of his adult children last March.
"The Twitter campaign is a deviation from the path of the true story, which is taking his brother and sister hostages, along with illegal persecution and false allegations," Khaled al-Jabri's son, Khaled, wrote in a telephone message to Reuters.
Last June, well-informed Saudi sources told Reuters that Prince Muhammad bin Salman was seeking to accuse Muhammad bin Nayef of allegations of corruption during his tenure as Minister of the Interior, and he wanted to obtain documents that al-Jabri could have accessed. Saudi authorities at the time did not respond to requests from Reuters for comment.
The moves against Prince Muhammad bin Nayef are the latest in a series of measures seen to target the consolidation of the power of Muhammad bin Salman within the ruling Al Saud family, and to eliminate any potential threats to his authority, before he ended up succeeding the king after his death or abdication.
An informed diplomat said that Twitter tweets paved the way for the Saudi authorities to charge Muhammad bin Nayef with involvement in the corruption attributed to Jabri.
The first Saudi source said that Mohammed bin Salman aides "are working to accelerate the campaign" against Muhammad bin Nayef and Al-Jabri before the US presidential elections in November, in the event of the loss of the current US President Donald Trump, who has openly declared his support for Bin Salman.
Joe Biden, the Democrat's nominee and potential Trump rival in the US presidential race, had taken a tougher stance on Mohammed bin Salman, promising to make him "pay the price" for the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and also pledging to end arms sales to the kingdom.
Twitter was a favorite tool for Saud al-Qahtani, the prominent aide to Ibn Salman, who ran the media center for the royal court, and formed an electronic army that was charged with protecting the kingdom's image and attacking its enemies on the Internet.
Al-Qahtani was dismissed from his post in 2018 due to accusations of his involvement in the murder of Khashoggi, and his investigation was carried out, but no charges were brought against him, and several sources told Reuters that he was still in the circle close to the Crown Prince.