WASHINGTON (Middle East Eye) – The U.S. Director of National Intelligence has invoked a rarely used state secrets legal privilege to prevent the release of classified information in a court case against Saudi Arabia’s former spy chief, Saad al-Jabri.
Director Avril Haines submitted the declaration in a Massachusetts district court last week, saying the information that was planned to be released as evidence in the ongoing court case between Jabri and a Saudi state-owned company could cause “exceptionally grave” harm to U.S. national security.
The declaration comes a month after the U.S. Justice Department filed a motion in the case, similarly saying it would intervene in the case to protect U.S. security interests.
Bob Litt, a former general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), told CNN that the filing by Haines was “very rare” because the litigation was between two private parties.
“You can assume that somebody has persuaded them there would be significant damage to our equities if whatever information it is came out,” Litt told the news site.
The litigation was brought against Jabri earlier this year by the Sakab Saudi Holding Company, whose parent company is owned by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, which is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. A similar case was previously brought to a Canadian court.
Sakab has accused Jabri of embezzling state funds while working under former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who in 2017 was ousted, placed under house arrest, and replaced by his cousin bin Salman, known by his initials MbS.
A source close to Jabri previously dismissed the allegations as a “blind vendetta”, and denied any financial wrongdoings, while another source familiar with his situation previously told MEE that Jabri’s loyalty to bin Nayef and his decades of knowledge of the inner workings of the kingdom’s powerful interior ministry had made him a target of MbS.
In order to defend himself against the charges, the Justice Department said last month that Jabri had intended “to describe and present evidence regarding alleged sensitive national security information”.
In a filing last month, Sakab said it opposed the U.S. government’s decision to intervene and that Jabri’s “intelligence background and cooperation with the United States have no relevance to Sakab’s fraud claims”.