On 18 May Abiy jetted off to Riyadh where he emerged from a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (aka MBS) with news that Mohamed Al Amoudi the Ethiopian-born Saudi billionaire who controls the MIDROC Group would soon be released (AC Vol 59 No 9 Who wants to see a billionaire...
Six months after his detention – and de facto disappearance – in Riyadh in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's crackdown on corruption the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has suspended the licence of Al Amoudi's gold-mining company Mohammed International Development & Research Organisation Companies (MIDROC) to export gold alloy to Switzerland...
Some of the magnates caught up in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's anti-corruption drive have been transferred to prison pending a conventional legal process but it isn't known if Al Amoudi is one of them...
On 12 July Deputy Chief of General Staff of the Saudi Armed Forces Lieutenant-General Fayyadh bin Hamed Al-Ruwaili delivered a message to President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh from Saudi Defence Minister Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman concerning a defence and security partnership between the two countries...
In March its Deputy Crown Prince and Defence Minister Mohamed bin Salman al Saud held talks with Djibouti on a draft military cooperation agreement...