Saudi Arabia arrests Prince Faisal bin Abdullah

Prince Faisal bin Abdullah al-Saud, a son of Saudi Arabia's late monarch King Abdullah, has been in incommunicado detention since the end of March, according to a prominent rights group.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), citing a source with ties to the royal family, said on Saturday the prince was arrested by security forces on March 27 while self-isolating due to the coronavirus pandemic at a family compound northeast of the capital, Riyadh.

In 2017, the prominent member of the royal family had been rounded up and detained at a luxury hotel in Riyadh, in what was billed as an attempt to combat corruption among the higher echelons of the kingdom's bureaucracy. Prince Faisal, a former head of the Saudi Red Crescent Society, was released later that year.

There was no immediate comment by Saudi authorities to the HRW's report. _Al-Jazeera


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