RIYADH
\nA US citizen has been detained in Saudi Arabia after getting into a dispute with security officials while performing the Umrah pilgrimage, a family spokesperson told on Sunday.
\nMohamad Salem was taken into custody on November 1 and has been transferred to a maximum-security facility typically used for high-profile political prisoners and suspected terrorists, Abdallah Moughni said by phone from the US state of Michigan, where Salem lives.
\nHe is one of several Americans who have recently run afoul of Saudi authorities, amid heightened tensions between the two long-time partners over global oil supply.
\nSalem, a 63-year-old of Yemeni origin, travelled to Saudi Arabia with two of his sons to perform the Umrah pilgrimage at the Grand Mosque in Makkah, Moughni said.
\nWhile in line, he got into a verbal altercation with security officials who separated him from his sons.
\nLater, two men approached him, saying they were from Libya and asking what happened.
\nThe two men turned out to be undercover Saudi agents, and Salem was detained, Moughni said. Saudi officials and the US embassy in Riyadh did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
\nMoughni said the embassy had provided Salem\u2019s family with a list of possible lawyers but so far none had agreed to take the case.
\nSalem\u2019s relatives do not know whether he has been charged.
\nLast month, the family of Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a 72-year-old US citizen of Saudi origin, said he had received a 16-year prison sentence apparently because of Twitter posts on topics including the war in Yemen and the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
\nThis week, Carly Morris, an American woman who has publicly accused her Saudi ex-husband of trapping their daughter in the kingdom under so-called guardianship laws, was briefly detained but then released.
\nMoughni told AFP he hoped that political disagreements between Riyadh and Washington would not affect how Salem is treated.
\nThe two countries have been at odds over Saudi Arabia\u2019s push to cut oil production, which the White House has said amounts to siding with Russia in the Ukraine war.
\n\u201cHopefully the citizens don\u2019t have to suffer for the words of the government,\u201d Moughni said.
\n\u201cWe are allies at the end of the day. And at some point there needs to be some type of benefit to being an ally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RIYADH A US citizen has been detained in Saudi Arabia after getting into a dispute with security officials while performing the Umrah pilgrimage, a family spokesperson told on Sunday. Mohamad Salem was taken into custody on November 1 and has been transferred to a maximum-security facility typically used for high-profile political prisoners and suspected terrorists, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-295003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n