Who Are Sarah and Omar Aljabri? In Photographs and in Words...
The personal stories of the two young political prisoners Jared Kushner said he couldn't help get released by MBS
Monday I told you the story of how, back in December 2017, Jared Kushner met with former Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney in the Trump White House. Mulroney asked Kushner to speak to the Saudi Crown Prince, MBS about releasing two very young political prisoners, Sarah and Omar Aljabri, then only 17 and 18.
They had been placed under a travel ban and weren’t yet in prison, though that would come at 6am on March 16, 2020, when fifty plain-clothed officers arrived at their home in Riyadh in twenty unmarked cars and detained them.
The Aljabri’s father, Dr. Saad bin Khalid Aljabri, who had escaped to Canada as an exile, is considered an ally and a hero by US Intelligence.
But Kushner came back to Maloney a month later and said he couldn’t help get the Aljabri children released. Kushner said it was too difficult. The situation was “toxic”. Monday, I described the details of what is known about what happened after their arrest.
First, MBS texted Dr. Aljabri that he if he returned, he’d release them. Dr. Aljabri said MBS then sent a hit squad to assassinate him in Canada but it was foiled at the border. MBS denied this happened.
But three years later, in March 2020, days after MBS’s chief rival for the throne, Mohammed Bin Nayef [MBN] was “disappeared,” in Saudi Arabia, police came for Omar and Sarah. Their father had been MBN’s right-hand aide.
Their family hasn’t heard from them since. It’s been almost three years.
In the summer of 2022, the UN declared the detention of Sarah and Omar to be arbitrary and unlawful and called for their immediate release. The UN also referred the case to the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary disappearances and the Special Rapporteur on Torture.
Next month marks the third anniversary of Sarah and Omar’s disappearance. Thursday, the Republican-connected lobbyist Robert Stryk, filed a FARA (Foreign Rights Registration Act) form disclosing he is working for Khalid Aljabri, the son of Saad bin Khalid Aljabri and brother of Omar and Sarah, to advocate for the release and safe passage of the Aljabris.
Meanwhile, Jared Kushner has received a $2 billion investment from the Saudi State Investment Fund, PIF, controlled by MBS.
Congress is supposedly investigating whether Kushner’s foreign policy in the Middle East was guided by self-interest. He has said not. A report in the Washington Post suggests there is a hold-up getting information from the Biden Administration.
So, who are Sarah and Omar? I’ve had requests to share some of their story in the wake of Monday’s newsletter.
A family member, who doesn’t want to be more closely identified, given the sensitivity and risk of the current circumstances shared photographs with me and told me the following. It has been condensed and edited for clarity.
There are eight Aljabri siblings. Omar and Sarah are numbers five and six. They were basically born less than two years apart. So they were always friends since childhood. They were always together, and always best friends. They did the majority of their schooling at the British school in Riyadh. Sarah loved mathematics. She always wanted to be an architect. Sarah was very close to her mom.
She was the closest to her parents. She was always there to have breakfast with them in the morning. She'd give her mom her thyroid medication or give her dad his vitamin. Despite being young, she was a motherly type. Her room was full of pink stuff. She liked to hang out with her friends. She had a lot of cousins who were the same age. She liked to travel. She is shy at baseline, but she wouldn't shy away from trying a new adventure.
So, for instance, I remember in 2015 we went to a shooting range in Hampshire. And she tried shooting a rifle for the first time, despite being this shy, petite girl. Another a tidbit. They're actually classmates with the children of the ambassador in Washington, DC Reema…she knows them.
They loved traveling to Montreal and to Boston in the summers to see relatives. And then they decided in 2016 that they want to continue their education in Boston.
They loved Boston. Omar was going to do his freshman year in college in Boston. And Sarah wanted to complete high school there . So, she transferred to the British school in Boston. That's where she was going to come in 2017.
Omar was always at the center of the party. Omar is different. Very, very strong-headed since he was young. Very argumentative. You would not want to get into an argument with Omar because he would always win. We always kind of joked that he was going to be the lawyer of the family. He was a natural leader. His friends and colleagues like to be be centered around him. He likes to have fun. He is by far the most athletic in the family.
He used to cook his own food. He used to work out. He was ripped. He loved playing soccer. He loved the Celtics. He loves Chelsea. He was really, really full of life.
In June 2017 they were literally just waiting for their visa stamps to be issued and then just to come to Boston.
Then, literally, on June 20th [when they were issued with a travel ban] they became MBS’s first hostages. All they wanted to do was go on a plane and then come to Boston to get ready for school.
Sarah actually returned to the British school in Riyadh and completed high school. Omar enrolled in computer science in one of the colleges in Riyadh. And then, Sarah graduated the following year and went to architecture school in, Riyadh. So, at least, she still pursued her dream.
It was like: okay, if you take me away from my family… if you take me away from the academic institution… if you take me away from the country where I wanted to pursue my education, I'm still gonna make the best of the circumstances I'm in. And, for their mom and dad, Thank God at least there was FaceTime.
So they would FaceTime on a daily basis. Mom got accustomed to the seven, eight hour difference. So, before her mom went to bed on Eastern time, she’d wake Sarah up and tell her to go to class. It would be like 7:00 AM or 6:00 AM depending on the season. And then the same thing: basically later during the day when it's midnight in Saudi before Sarah sleeps, it'll be like 4:00 PM or 3:00 PM or 5:00 PM on Eastern time. And that’s when they’d talk again. Her mom would wake her up whenever she had a quiz or a midterm exam; or sometimes she'd be just on FaceTime comforting Sarah while she'd be working on building a model at architecture school.
One time Sarah lost access to her password on her MacBook and her dad stayed with her because he’s a computer scientist. He tried to fix it for her. So 10,000 miles apart, we still wanted them to feel as normal as possible. They, were 17, 18 [when placed under a travel ban] they didn't want to go and move and live with any grandmothers or aunts or uncles. They stayed home. And they matured. They learned independence. They learned to fight, but, fundamentally, they’re just a couple of kids who wanted to be with their family.
Sarah was 17 [when she was turned around at the airport]. I can't think of a time when a girl needs to be closer to her mom or her older sister and, and Omar the same. Omar is very nice with kids. He loves playing with kids because he’s silly. He's full of tricks. They were full of life and then MBS stole their lives basically.
They're literally kids. All they wanted to do was be good at school and not piss off their parents, and be nice to their friends and have fun. It's just super sad.
Waiting for a visa to come to School in the US.
They were in school under March 2020. Then they were imprisoned and have not been heard from since.