{"id":302394,"date":"2025-11-20T03:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T03:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/302394\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T03:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T03:19:09","slug":"saad-ibrahim-almadi-son-of-us-citizen-held-in-saudi-arabia-says-trump-administration-secured-his-fathers-return-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/302394\/","title":{"rendered":"Saad Ibrahim Almadi: Son of US citizen held in Saudi Arabia says Trump administration secured his father\u2019s return home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi6q8yp8005y2cox0x85cuxe@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The son of a United States citizen held in Saudi Arabia for criticizing the Saudi government said Wednesday the Trump administration secured his father\u2019s release and thanked US officials for helping bring him home.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi6qa07b00083b6n1c4iztdx@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            \u201cThey really delivered when it comes to my father\u2019s situation. I understand Saudi Arabia is supposed to be our ally regime to us, but they\u2019ve been mistreating us for a while now. And finally, they are correcting the course when it comes to my father\u2019s situation,\u201d Ibrahim Almadi told CNN\u2019s Erin Burnett on \u201cOutFront.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi6qa07b00093b6nnx56wdzc@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            His father, Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a US-Saudi dual national, was given a 16-year sentence for tweets critical of the Saudi government in 2022. He was released <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/03\/21\/politics\/saad-ibrahim-almadi-released-saudi-arabia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in 2023 but remained in Riyadh under a travel ban<\/a>. His son insisted at the time that his father would not be free until he was in the US.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi6qa07b000a3b6n9442gmi5@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            CNN has reached out to the State Department and the White House for comment.\n    <\/p>\n<p>       <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ibrahim-almadi.jpg\" alt=\"Ibrahim Almadi during an interview with CNN.\" class=\"image_large__dam-img image_large__dam-img--loading\" onload=\"this.classList.remove('image_large__dam-img--loading')\" onerror=\"imageLoadError(this)\" height=\"1080\" width=\"1920\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi6qa07b000b3b6nf3qpjsps@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            News of Almadi\u2019s release came as President Donald Trump appeared at a US-Saudi investment conference in Washington, DC. Trump, who has actively sought to cultivate his relationship with Saudi Arabia in his second term, hosted a lavish state visit on Tuesday for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday, who the president praised for what he called an \u201cincredible\u201d record on human rights.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi6qa07b000c3b6nmhybw01o@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            Ibrahim Almadi told CNN that his father was told his release was \u201ca forgiveness from the king and crown prince.\u201d Asked if his father\u2019s release was connected to the state visit this week, Almadi said, \u201cAbsolutely. It\u2019s crystal clear to me that, Mr. President, without him, my father wouldn\u2019t be released. I\u2019m quite thankful for the Trump administration and the Department of State.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi6qa07b000d3b6nlopimo7v@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The Almadi family confirmed in a statement posted to X earlier Wednesday that Saad Ibrahim Almadi was on his way home to the United States, noting \u201cThis day would not be possible without President Donald Trump and the tireless efforts of his administration.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi6qa07b000e3b6n9codzszl@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            \u201cThank you to everyone who stood by us during this horrific ideal,\u201d the family said. \u201cWe hope the support and care we received will continue for those still held hostage in Saudi Arabia and in other parts of the world.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi6qa07b000f3b6nk2522rwx@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            CNN\u2019s Kylie Atwood, Kevin Liptak, Mostafa Salem and Celine Alkhaldi contributed to this report.\n    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The son of a United States citizen held in Saudi Arabia for criticizing the Saudi government said Wednesday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-302394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}