Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in an interview that aired Wednesday on Fox News that he is “ashamed” of some of the kingdom’s regressive laws after a retired teacher in his country was sentenced to death this summer over tweets that were critical of Saudi leadership.
“Shamefully, it’s true. It’s something I don’t like,” bin Salman told Bret Baier, who conducted the interview from Saudi Arabia’s Sindalah Island.
After Baier asked him why he couldn’t use his position to change laws he disagreed with, bin Salman replied: “We are doing our best.”
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“We have already changed tens of laws in Saudi Arabia, and the list has more than 1,000 items. In the cabinet they have only 150 lawyers, so I’m trying to prioritize the change day by day,” he said.
“But we are not happy with that. We are ashamed of that. But [under] the jury system, you have to follow the laws and I cannot tell a judge [to] do that and ignore the law, because… that’s against the rule of law. But do we have bad laws? Yes. We are changing that, yes.”
Mohammad Alghamdi’s death sentence came after he ran two anonymous accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, which together had only 10 followers. He mainly reshared posts critical of the government, according to Human Rights Watch, but sometimes made his own posts.
While it’s unclear how Alghamdi’s identity became known to authorities, a former X employee who passed users’ personal details to the Saudi government was found guilty last year of spying on behalf of the country
“Do you think that guy is going to get killed for that post?” Baier asked.
“Well, I believe there are a few steps and trials,” bin Salman replied. “I’m hoping that [in] the next phase of trials, the judge there is more experienced and they might look at it totally differently.”
Alghamdi can appeal the verdict, which was handed down July 10 by the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh, according to court documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch.
Anther notable exchange in the interview related to a $2 billion investment the country’s sovereign wealth fund—which the crown prince controls—made to the firm of former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former senior adviser, Jared Kushner.
As for the hefty investment, which Kushner’s firm Affinity Partners received a few months after Trump left office, bin Salman said that if Trump were to become president again, the money would stay where it is.
“It’s a commitment that the [Public Investment Fund] have, and when PIF have a commitment with any investor around the globe, they keep it,” he said, before strongly suggesting that that money would affect Trump’s decisions if he were president.
He also demanded that Saudi Arabia be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon if its regional rival Iran were to acquire one.
“We are concerned [by] any country getting a nuclear weapon,” he added. “That’s a bad move.”
