The United States has said it was raising with Saudi Arabia a prison sentence handed to a US citizen over tweets critical of the kingdom. It is another source of tension between the historic allies.
The US State Department confirmed the detention of Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a US citizen of Saudi origin, and said the United States brought up his case starting in December last year and as recently as yesterday.
"We have consistently and intensively raised our concerns regarding the case at senior levels of the Saudi government, both through channels in Riyadh and Washington, DC," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
"Exercising freedom of expression should never be criminalised," he said.
The Washington Post reported that Mr Almadi, who lives in Florida and had gone to visit family, was detained last November at the airport regarding 14 tweets he wrote over the previous seven years.
Quoting his son, the newspaper said that Mr Almadi, who is 72, was sentenced on 3 October to 16 years in prison with a travel ban of another 16 years after that.
His son, Ibrahim, told the newspaper that his father had expressed only "mild" opinions with tweets mentioning corruption in Saudi Arabia and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the US-based columnist who was dismembered in 2018 after being lured into the kingdom's Istanbul consulate.
Mr Almadi was charged in part with supporting and funding terrorism and trying to destabilise the kingdom, his son said.
The death of Mr Khashoggi, who wrote for The Washington Post, triggered outrage in Washington although then president Donald Trump boasted of saving the powerful crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, from major repercussions.
President Joe Biden declassified intelligence that showed that the crown prince ordered the killing and vowed to get tougher, including over Saudi Arabia's deadly offensive in Yemen.
Nonetheless, in July Mr Biden travelled to Saudi Arabia and was photographed in a fist-bump with the crown prince on a trip seen as seeking the kingdom's help to lower gas prices by pumping more oil.
But on 5 October OPEC+, led by Saudi Arabia, announced a major cut in production just ahead of US congressional elections, outraging Mr Biden who vowed consequences.
Saudi Arabia has long faced criticism over human rights. Blogger and rights activist Raif Badawi served 10 years in prison through March and was publicly lashed 50 times for charges over content on his website.
