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Saudi Arabia Moves Toward Trials of Women’s Rights Activists

Loujain al-Hathloul, one of the most prominent activists jailed. On a family visit, she “was shaking uncontrollably, unable to hold her grip, to walk or sit normally.”Credit...Loujain al-Hathloul, via Associated Press

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The office of Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor said late Friday that it had completed its investigation into a group of women’s rights activists, accused of working to “undermine the security” of the kingdom, and was preparing to put them on trial.

Human rights groups have criticized the treatment of the activists, who were arrested last spring but have yet to face formal charges. Some of the activists were subjected to torture during interrogation, according to relatives and others briefed on their cases. Saudi Arabia denies that any were mistreated.

The group includes both women and men. Some had campaigned openly for Saudi Arabia to lift its ban on women driving, while others had supported the cause in quieter ways. Some members of the group were in the process of opening a shelter for abused women when they were arrested, including a man who donated land for the project. He was later released, but others were not.

The activists were detained last year as the kingdom was preparing to lift its ban on women driving, leading many to assume that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s day-to-day ruler, did not want to share credit for the change with activists who had pushed for it.

After the arrests, the Saudi public prosecutor’s office accused the activists of working to “undermine the security and stability of the kingdom.” It said they had admitted to collaborating with parties “hostile to the kingdom,” recruited government employees to give them confidential information and given “financial and moral support to hostile elements abroad.”

But the statement did not say they were officially being charged with any crimes.

Of 17 people arrested in the case, the prosecutor said eight had been granted temporary release, while nine were still being held.

The government did not identify the suspects, but at least one Saudi newspaper and several websites published their names and photos, stamped with the word “traitor,” and said they could face lengthy prison sentences.

The prosecutor’s statement on Friday signaled the next step in the legal process, with the cases transferred to the courts. It did not say when trials were likely to begin.

Saudi Arabia’s human rights record has come under greater scrutiny since the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul in October. While members of Congress have pressed to punish the kingdom, President Trump had stood by Prince Mohammed, considering him a key ally in the Middle East and a reliable buyer of American weapons.

The prosecutor’s statement came days after Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, met with Prince Mohammed in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, during a tour of the Middle East to try to build support for his unannounced plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It is unclear whether Mr. Kushner raised Mr. Khashoggi’s killing or the rights activists’ case during the meeting.

Both cases have strained relations with many countries in the West, including with Canada, whose ambassador was expelled from the kingdom after Canada’s Foreign Ministry called for the activists’ release.

Friday’s statement angered relatives of the detainees.

“Can we know the results of the investigation and the torture before the detained women are transferred to trial?” Walid al-Hathloul, whose sister Loujain al-Hathloul is among the detainees, wrote on Twitter. “If there was a confession, it was a confession under torture.”

Any formal legal action against the group would face questions and doubts abroad because of allegations that, after their arrests, the activists were held in private facilities and beaten, electrocuted, insulted and sexually harassed. The abuse of one detainee was so severe that she tried to kill herself, according to people briefed on her case who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

In January, the sister of Ms. al-Hathloul, one of the most prominent of the detainees, wrote in an Op-Ed in The New York Times that during a family visit, her sister “was shaking uncontrollably, unable to hold her grip, to walk or sit normally.”

Her parents asked her about torture on a later visit and she said she had been “held in solitary confinement, beaten, waterboarded, given electric shocks, sexually harassed and threatened with rape and murder,” the sister, Alia al-Hathloul, wrote.

In an interview on Saturday, she said an investigator had recently forced her sister to sign a letter written in her name asking for a pardon from the king. She said it was unclear whether the government was really planning to try the activists or was seeking a way to end a case that has tarnished Prince Mohammed’s reputation as a reformer and advocate for women’s rights.

“They are unpredictable,” Ms. al-Hathloul said of kingdom officials.

Follow Ben Hubbard on Twitter: @NYTBen.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: Advocates For Women To Face Trial, Saudis Say. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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