The Saudi prince Miteb bin Abdullah is reputed to have pocketed hundreds of millions of pounds in payments connected to defence deals.
Miteb was once considered to be a possible future Saudi king, but lost out in a power tussle in which he was reportedly stripped of a substantial portion of his wealth.
His personal fortune was derived from his senior position in the Saudi Arabian national guard, which he was appointed to lead in 2010, five years after his father, Abdullah, a previous holder of the post, became king. For 10 years before taking over, Miteb held senior positions in the unit.
The prince is believed to have taken a personal cut over many years from contracts to supply equipment to the guards, a military unit responsible for protecting the kingdom’s royal family. One of these deals was the contract given to the British firm at the heart of a criminal trial that concluded on Wednesday, with the two defendants being cleared of any wrongdoing in connection with the deal.
In 2017, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince and de facto Saudi ruler, arrested Miteb and many other Saudi princes, officials and businessmen, in what was billed as an anti-corruption drive. Others, however, considered it to be a crude way of eliminating political rivals.
They were held in the five-star Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh. After three weeks, Miteb reportedly secured his release by admitting corruption and paying $1bn. It is not known what he had been accused of. His current whereabouts is unknown.
Abdullah’s third son regularly had meetings in the past with British royals and ministers, as the two countries sought to cement military and diplomatic ties.
A Sandhurst graduate, the prince had a “close and friendly relationship” with the then Prince Charles, according to a US defence intelligence agency report produced in 2001 and released to the Guardian under American freedom of information legislation.
The agency noted that the first item on Charles’s tour of Saudi Arabia that year was a visit to Miteb. The Saudi prince had recently been promoted to be an assistant commander of the national guard, a promotion that appears to have been exceptionally lucrative.