(Washington) Hayder Alhamdani… July 15, 2003… Top Saudi diplomat to Holland, Mr. Mishael Thaar Al-Motairi, defected today, he said in a statement released to the press today.
Mr. Al-Motairi (42) worked for three year as top administrative attaché of Saudi embassy in Holland.
In phone interview with SIA News Mr. Al-Motairi said “I have found a lot of financial, moral and administrative corruption within the embassy and I have reported this to the foreign ministry of Saudi, but I didn’t receive any response, as a matter of fact they were covering these problems. Therefore, I requested a political asylum to the Dutch government after several lawyers ensured me that my request will be accepted 100%.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Al-Motairi worked in seven Saudi embassies throughout the world and has seen a lot of corruption and mishandling of important issues within the diplomatic core. He said this is not the first time he saw this kind of activities. He blamed the Saudi ambassador to Holland for all the corruption in the embassy.
He said he worked in Iraq for two years during which he over saw a lot of weapon transfer from Saudi Arabia to Saddam’s government.
Mr. Al-Motairi has been working as a diplomat for the Saudi Foreign Ministry since 1982
In the last few years several Saudi diplomats have defected. In 1994 Mr. Mohamed Alkhelwi, a top diplomat at the Saudi UN mission in New York defected and received political asylum in the US. He also made similar accusations to that of Al-Motairi.
The Saudi embassy in Washington refused o comment when contacted by SIA news |
