'Biden sold my father for oil': POTUS shredded by son of US citizen jailed in Saudi Arabia for 16 years
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA: The son of an American man jailed in Saudi Arabia for 16 years has said President Joe Biden failed to help his father and accused Biden of "selling him for oil". After the US State Department failed to send a representative to observe proceedings in Saudi Arabia, 72-year-old Saad Ibrahim Almadi was jailed for some tweets he posted while in Florida. His son, Ibrahim Almadi, has now slammed Biden and opened up about how his father was treated.
Saad was arrested at the airport in November last year when he traveled to visit his family in Riyadh. He was accused of trying to destabilize the kingdom and supporting and funding terrorism. His son said the only evidence they showed in Saudi court was 14 tweets his father had posted.
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Who is Saad Ibrahim Almadi?
Saad was a project manager from Florida, and a a citizen of both Saudi Arabia and the US. In the tweets, Saad criticized the demolition of old parts of the cities of Mecca and Jeddah, and poverty in the kingdom. There was also reference to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Saad was sentenced to 16 years, and slapped with a 16 year travel ban, which meant he would not be able to return to America until the age of 104.
To get information about his father, Almadi allegedly called the White House switchboard almost every day from late May. Despite his efforts, he failed to get in touch with Stephanie Hallett, the National Security Council’s acting senior director for the Middle East and North Africa. According to Almadi, the phone operator asked him, "Why do you want to talk to someone who doesn’t want to talk to you?"
Blasting Joe Biden, Almadi told New York Post, "He sold my father for oil, that’s clear to us. Especially when we saw the news last week about how they requested to delay the OPEC decisions a month. Biden just cares about votes. He doesn’t care about my father, he doesn’t care about American citizens. He got sold for oil, but they didn’t receive the oil. So there is no father, no oil. There’s nothing — there is only shame, that is what the White House has got now."
He accused State Department officials of laughing at him when he expressed concerns over the fact that his father would not be able to vote in the midterm elections. "My father’s a Republican registered voter. He wants to participate in the coming election. They laughed and said that your father should request a paper ballot," he said.
Almadi told BBC that he believes that Biden would have tried hard to help his father had he been arrested in Russia or Iran, but in this case, the president was trying to keep the oil-rich kingdom on his side. "If you're held in Saudi Arabia, a barrel of oil is worth more than you, habibi," Almadi said.
Almadi claimed his father has been tortured and forced to live with actual terrorists in prison. A representative from the US Embassy took six months to visit Sadd in jail and no one from the department was present when he was sentenced on October 3. His son told Washington Post, "I told the State Department his hearing was set for October 3 and they should attend. Afterward, over the phone, they said, 'Oh, I’m sorry we forgot to tell the embassy.'"