A British woman has spoken out for the first time about the alleged abduction, torture and coercion of her husband at the hands of Saudi authorities, after nine years of “failed” quiet diplomacy.
The businessman Rami Naimi was first abducted in Dubai in ۲۰۱۷ on his return from a trip to Australia with his father. After being tortured, he was released the following year.
The father of three, who is the son of Ali Al-Naimi, a former Saudi oil minister and head of the state oil company Aramco, was detained again in ۲۰۲۲ and held for two years. Last year he was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment after a secret trial.
He was initially detained alongside ۴۰۰ of the kingdom’s most powerful people in an infamous round-up at the the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, which became the biggest and most contentious purge in the modern kingdom’s history.
Speaking out for the first time after years of what they described as a failed diplomatic process, his family has alleged abduction, disappearance, torture and coercion at the hands of Saudi authorities.
Naimi now faces a second trial for allegedly following certain accounts on X critical of Saudi Arabia and for attempting to leave the country without permission – both of which he denies.
“The first thing I wanted to do was speak out, but I was told no,” said his wife, Mira Lozi, speaking alongside her son at a campaign launch to bring Naimi home in London on Tuesday.
Lozi, currently fighting cancer, fought back tears as she said she had been encouraged to keep silent since ۲۰۱۷ to help secure his release.
“For nine years my children and I have lived through a nightmare,” she said. “Saying the truth today is like a liberation, enough is enough and we’re just hoping that we can end this nightmare and all the governments will be able to help us.”
Naimi left Saudi Arabia aged ۱۳ and travelled for years between the UK, US and Middle East as a businessman. His family claim he was abducted in Dubai in ۲۰۱۷ after returning home from a book tour trip from Australia with his father.
They say he was blindfolded and forcibly taken by car to Abu Dhabi and then by private jet to Saudi Arabia. He was surprised to find himself with the others who had been rounded up, his family said, as he is not a journalist, activist or politician.
His abduction in ۲۰۱۷ came as the kingdom’s elite were detained at a five-star hotel in Riyadh during a purge in which princes, tycoons and ministers were stripped of their fortunes. Accounts later surfaced detailing torture and coercion, and the event preceded the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose assassination at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in ۲۰۱۸ sparked revulsion around the world.
Naimi was held at the hotel and tortured, electrocuted, waterboarded and psychologically abused for three months, his family said. He was told, falsely, that his father was being tortured next door. He was released in January ۲۰۱۸ after signing a “settlement agreement”.
He was subsequently forced to sign a document pledging to surrender ۵bn Saudi riyals, later “discounted” to ۱bn riyals (£۲۰۰m) – which the family says neither he nor they possess. Naimi was placed under electronic surveillance and banned from leaving the kingdom.
His family said he was disappeared again for nearly two years in ۲۰۲۲, and subjected to further torture, and emotional and psychological abuse. They said they had no idea if he was alive or dead, and learned only through the help of his legal team and diplomats that he was being held in Saudi’s notorious Al Ha’ir prison.
It was after his release in March ۲۰۲۵, with an electronic tag and subject to a travel ban, that he learned of charges against him claiming he had “exploited” his father’s official influence. Naimi faced allegations he acted as an agent for a US company in Saudi Arabia and helped Aramco to secure a contract to provide technology to prevent diesel smuggling.
After seven years without charges, Naimi, an EU citizen, was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment after a secret trial. Now he is unable to leave Saudi Arabia and his communications with his family remain monitored. He has no idea, the family said, of their decision to go public with his case.
“Until today we have no idea why Rami was targeted,” said Lozi, who is too frightened to return to Saudi Arabia or travel to the United Arab Emirates.
“It really is something out of a movie. It’s shocking and we just want to end this nightmare,” said his ۲۱-year-old son, Ali, who was ۱۲ when his father was abducted.
In recent years the UK’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has come under scrutiny over the flow of arms between the two countries, Riyadh’s use of public executions and targeting of exiled activists and dissidents.
“Any family making a decision like this needs to be supported by the government,” said human rights lawyer Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, who is leading the case.
As the family hopes to meet the new prime minister and foreign secretary, Gallagher said the recent appointment of a special envoy for Britons detained overseas did not go as far as campaigners, experts and parliamentarians had called for.
Gallagher described it as: “Tea and sympathy for a very limited group of people.”
Last month the Guardian reported that X had become the latest US social media company to block the accounts of Saudi dissidents so they are no longer visible inside the kingdom, following orders from Saudi authorities.
The UK Foreign Office declined to comment. The Saudi embassy in London has been approached for comment.
