WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia allowed US citizen Saad Almadi to return home to Florida as President Trump lavishly hosted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman for a second day of events in DC.
Almadi, 75, was trapped in Riyadh for four years after he was arrested in late 2021 and initially sentenced to 19 years in prison for tweeting mild criticisms of the Saudi government from his home in Boca Raton.
The retired engineer was released from prison in 2023 but banned from leaving the country — as authorities dangled the threat of a second trial and return to prison.
Almadi was airborne from Riyadh as of 12:15 ET Wednesday, according to his family — 13 minutes after Trump and the crown prince, widely known by his initials MBS, appeared on stage at an investment forum in DC.
“Our family is overjoyed that, after four long years, our father, Saad Almadi, is finally on his way home to the United States!” his family said in a statement.
“This day would not have been possible without President Donald Trump and the tireless efforts of his administration. We are deeply grateful to Dr. Sebastian Gorka and the team at the National Security Council, as well as everyone at the State Department.”
The family statement, written by Almadi’s son and chief advocate Ibrahim Almadi, also credited The Post’s “courageous” coverage of the case and thanked various non-profits and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for supporting the elder Almadi’s cause.
Trump’s precise involvement in pleading for Almadi’s release was not immediately clear.
The president said he was interested in the matter when asked by The Post in May, shortly after returning from a trip to the kingdom.
“I haven’t heard about it at all. If you give me the information on the plane — are you on the plane? Give me the information. I’ll see what I can do,” Trump told The Post.
“What did he do, supposedly?” Trump asked, before saying upon hearing the details, “Let me take a look.”
Almadi is a naturalized US citizen who moved to the US in 1976. He had returned to his homeland to sell property when he was detained and grilled on the content of his Twitter feed as part of a broad crackdown on dissent as MBS consolidated political control.
His son told The Post that his newly freed dad was due to land in the US around 9 a.m. ET Friday and would like to visit the White House to thank Trump before returning home to Boca Raton.
The White House did not immediately comment on the release and a possible meeting with Trump has not been formalized.
Trump has relished helping broker the release of Americans held abroad and later hosted at the White House — starting with Marc Fogel, who was released from Russia for small-scale marjiauna possession, in February.
The Almadi case centered on social media posts that are relatively benign by American standards — including urging Saudi citizens to seek Lebanese citizenship and faulting the nation’s defense against inbound Houthi rockets from Yemen.
Almadi also expressed approval of DC officials renaming a street in honor of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist killed in 2018 at the Turkish consulate in Istanbul in an operation the US intelligence community believes was ordered by the crown prince.
The release comes after Trump rolled out an over-the-top welcome to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler during his two-day visit to Washington.
On Tuesday, horses escorted the authoritarian reformer on the White House driveway as trumpet players blasted a triumphant tune from the balcony.
The president defended the royal guest from reporter questions in the Oval Office before hosting a Tuesday night dinner with business titans in the White House East Room — and then appearing with him again Wednesday to tout $1 trillion in Saudi investment pledges in the US.
Ibrahim Almadi previously raged against then-President Joe Biden for appearing to prioritize lower oil prices ahead of the 2022 midterm elections over his father’s freedom — declaring that he regretted his own vote for the Democrat.
“[Biden] sold my father for oil,” his son said at the time. “Biden just cares about votes. He doesn’t care about my father, he doesn’t care about American citizens. He got sold for oil, but they didn’t receive the oil. So there is no father, no oil. There’s nothing — there is only shame.”
