A Canadian judge has validated the service of legal papers in a court case which could see Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the chairman of LIV Golf and Newcastle United, sued for having allegedly conspired with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), in a campaign to “destroy” the family of the state’s former intelligence chief, Dr. Saad Aljabri.
Al-Rumayyan is the governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign wealth fund that purchased an 80 per cent stake in the Premier League club Newcastle United in October 2021. He is also the most powerful man at LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed tour, and earlier this month, the New York Times reported that he spoke via telephone with President Donald Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office that also included the PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan as the Justice Department considered whether to approve a joint venture between the parties.
President Trump is due this week to make an address at the PIF-backed FII Institute conference in Miami, which will host global financiers and executives. Al-Rumayyan is also the chair of the board of oil company Saudi Aramco, who have major sponsorship agreements with FIFA, Formula 1 (including title sponsorship of the Aston Martin team) and the International Cricket Council.
The Athletic first reported on the claims made against Al-Rumayyan in this court case in early 2024. At that stage, the court papers were seeking permission for parties including Al-Rumayyan, the PIF itself and the PIF board director Mohammed Al Al-Sheik, to be added to an existing court case and for a counter-claim to be brought against the parties over the allegations.
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The Athletic has now obtained new court documents, filed on January 3, 2025, from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. These say that Honorable Justice Cavanagh has validated service of a notice of motion which sought to bring about the counterclaim. The next procedural step in the case, should it move forward, is for the court to decide whether to grant leave to add the new parties and issue the counter-claim. If this happens, then the proposed defendants, including Al-Rumayyan, may need to provide a defence or eventually even appear in person.
The court documents confirm that attempts were made to serve Al-Rumayyan and PIF at locations all over the world; in Saudi Arabia to PIF offices via courier and in the United States to both Aramco Americas and a separate PIF subsidiary. Attempts of service were also made to lawyers acting for Mr Al-Rumayyan in litigation involving LIV Golf, plus by process server and mail to Newcastle United in the United Kingdom. Justice Cavanagh therefore validated the service, saying: “I am satisfied that the Notice of Motion has come to the attention of the Proposed Added Parties.”
The draft of the proposed counter-claim, previously reported by The Athletic, alleges that the defendants, including Al-Rumayyan, were “directly involved” in a three-and-a-half-year campaign between June 2017 and January 2021 to pursue the family of Saad Aljabri, who is a former intelligence aide to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. It accuses him of “having carried out the instructions” of MBS, with “the malicious intent” of “harming, silencing and ultimately destroying” the family of the former intelligence chief Aljabri.
Bin Nayef was previously the heir to the Saudi throne but he was deposed in a palace coup in 2017 and has been in detention since 2020. Aljabri escaped Saudi Arabia in 2017, first heading to Turkey before moving to Canada, where this legal case is taking place. In January 2021, a series of Saudi state-owned companies alleged in a Canadian lawsuit that Aljabri embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars of state funds intended for counter-terrorism while working at the interior ministry – a claim denied by Aljabri.
The family’s proposed counterclaim against Al-Rumayyan accuses him and Al-Sheik, who is also a PIF board member and a Saudi Minister of State, of taking steps to orchestrate an alleged campaign which include “wrongful kidnapping and detention”, “misappropriation of property” and the “expropriation” of companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars into PIF hands. These steps, the papers allege, were taken for “political reasons” and at the service of the Saudi Crown Prince, MBS. The proposed counterclaim alleges that “meetings and discussions” took place between July and September 2017 between MBS, Al-Sheik and Al-Rumayyan “to discuss how to create pressure on Aljabri”. Should the court allow the claim to go ahead, the documents say that Aljabri family will be claiming for CA$100million (US$70.5m, £55.9m) in damages for “abuse of process” and “unlawful means conspiracy”.
If it is proven that Al-Rumayyan or PIF acted at the service of MBS as the Aljabri family allege, this may present fresh questions for the English Premier League, who approved the takeover of Newcastle United by PIF after what the league described as “legally binding assurances” that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would not control the club. The degree of separation between PIF and the Saudi state has been queried previously because MBS is the chairman of the board of PIF. The Premier League and Newcastle were approached for comment.
PIF completed its takeover of Newcastle in October 2021 (Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images)
The conflict between MBS and the Aljabri family came to light when, in August 2019, Aljabri submitted a lawsuit in the United States, where he alleged a “hit squad” had been sent to murder him in Canada in the previous October. Aljabri then told CBS that a six-person Saudi team landed at Ottawa airport where he claims they misled customs about knowing one another and carried suspicious equipment for DNA analysis. The six men were deported.
CBS reported Canadian officials as saying: “We are aware of incidents in which foreign actors have attempted to… threaten… those living in Canada. It is completely unacceptable.” The Saudi embassy in Washington DC said Aljabri has a “long history of fabricating and creating distractions”. MBS’s lawyers rejected Aljabri’s allegations and pointed out that MBS has legal immunity in the United States as a foreign head of state in any case. Michael Kellogg, an attorney for MBS, has described Aljabri’s claim as “steeped in drama”.
It has previously been reported how Saudi Arabia sought the help of Interpol to extradite Aljabri, only for Interpol to remove his name from their system. The New York Times reported that the Interpol commission has criticised Saudi’s handling of corruption cases “for the lack of due process and human rights guarantees”.
In March 2020, Aljabri’s son, Omar, and daughter, Sarah, were arrested in Riyadh. They had been due to continue their education in Boston in the U.S. only to be banned from leaving Saudi Arabia in 2017 at Riyadh airport, when Omar was 18 years old and Sarah only 17, for “security reasons”. Their family say they were never formally notified of the reasons for the travel ban.
The proposed counterclaim alleges that “from June 2017 through January 2021, Al Al-Sheik and Al-Rumayyan, together with the other Counterclaim Defendants, carried out MBS’ instructions to take steps to pursue the Aljabri family through judicial and extra-judicial means, which they did with the malicious intent to and for the purpose of harming, silencing, and ultimately destroying the Aljabri family.”
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It further claims that these “steps” include “the wrongful kidnapping and detention of Omar and Sarah, and the wrongful abduction, detention, and torture of Dr. Aljabri’s son-in-law Salem Almuzaini, which was undertaken for the sole purpose of retribution against Dr. Aljabri.”
On November 4, 2020, a Saudi court sentenced Omar to nine years’ imprisonment and his sister to six-and-a-half-years. They were not permitted to be present or have the cross-examination of witnesses. Convictions followed of financial crimes and conspiracy to escape the kingdom unlawfully. In 2022, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called on Saudi Arabia to immediately release Aljabri’s jailed children.
Four U.S. senators wrote a letter to then (and current) president Donald Trump in July 2020, in which they said: “The Saudi government is believed to be using the children as leverage to try to force their father’s return to the kingdom from Canada.” Senator Patrick Leahy, a contributors to the letter, alleged on Twitter, that the Saudi royal family is holding Aljabri’s children as “hostages”.
Human Rights Watch alleged that the trial was expedited over a few weeks. They also said that when the family appealed the conviction, “the authorities carried out a secret appeal session without notifying or the presence of the siblings, their lawyer or the family”. Their family say they have not had direct access to Omar or Sarah since March 2020.
The Athletic has contacted PIF, LIV Golf, Saudi Aramco, the Saudi embassy in London, the Saudi centre for International Communication, the Premier League and Newcastle United for comment. The Premier League declined to comment, while the others did not respond at point of publication.
(Top photo: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
