Son of US citizen detained in Saudi Arabia says his father is 'nowhere near being dissident' - CNN

CNN  — 

The lad of an American national imprisoned successful Saudi Arabia for criticizing the Saudi authorities said Tuesday evening that his begetter is “nowhere adjacent being a dissident.”

“My begetter is simply a elder American national who conscionable wants to unrecorded freely and blessed successful the United States wherever helium got his education,” Saad Ibrahim Almadi’s son, Ibrahim Almadi, told CNN’s Erin Burnett connected “OutFront.”

The US State Department confirmed earlier Tuesday that 72-year-old Saad Ibrahim Almadi has been imprisoned successful Saudi Arabia aft being fixed a 16-year condemnation for tweets captious of the Saudi government.

Almadi’s imprisonment was archetypal reported by The Washington Post.

Ibrahim Almadi told CNN connected Tuesday that if his begetter had been held successful Russia oregon Iran, “we’d spot his sanction successful the headlines each morning.”

State Department lawman spokesperson Vedant Patel said astatine a quality briefing that officials person “consistently and intensively raised our concerns regarding the lawsuit astatine elder levels of the Saudi government, some done channels successful Riyadh and Washington, DC, arsenic good … arsenic precocious arsenic yesterday.”

Patel besides confirmed that determination was nary State Department authoritative astatine Almadi’s sentencing hearing, which helium said was due to the fact that the Saudi authorities moved up the proceeding day without telling the US embassy and ne'er responded to the embassy’s petition to be the proceeding weeks earlier it was primitively scheduled. The past clip the US had consular entree to Almadi was August 10, according to Patel.

The State Department, helium said, is inactive going done the process to find whether Almadi volition beryllium designated arsenic “wrongfully detained.”

“Exercising the state of look should ne'er beryllium criminalized,” Patel said.

The State Department communicated with the Saudi ambassador successful Washington connected Monday astir Almadi’s case, a US authoritative told CNN.

This header and communicative person been updated with further developments Tuesday.