The story of the “sleeping prince”: he has been in a coma since 2005 and his family refuses to disconnect him

He was 18 when he suffered a serious car accident in London. Since 2005, Al Walid bin Khalid bin Talal al Saud He is in a coma due to his parents’ refusal to follow the doctor’s advice and disconnect him from the machine that keeps him alive. The family of the baptized “sleeping prince” This week Saudi Arabia had a new misfortune: Mohamed, one of the prince’s brain-dead brothers, suffered a car accident under similar circumstances.

The millionaire’s family doesn’t want to disconnect him because they say so “God is able to bring him back to life.” That incident with Mohamed brought the case of the “sleeping prince” back to the present and many in the Asian country are wondering: what happened to Al Walid bin Khalid bin Talal al Saud.

After his tragic accident, he spent almost ten years in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Riyadh. Six years ago he moved into the family residence, according to journalist Francisco Carrión in an El Mundo report.

For a certain period, social networks were flooded with rumors about his health, even leaving him for dead. The family denied this on Twitter and showed a video in which they could be seen shaking their heads.

A source close to the Saudi royals told El Mundo newspaper that “Al Walid has been in a coma for more than 15 years and remains so.” The Spanish media assure that his father Khaled bin Talalrefuses to disconnect it and He claims that one day a miracle will occur that will allow him to “regain his life.”

“God who saved his soul for more than a decade is able to bring him back to life,” Khaled bin Talal said a year ago.

Al Walid and Mohamed are nephews of one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest fortunes, billionaire Al Walid bin Talal. The most atypical and liberal of the Saudi princes, with millions of followers on social media, is the owner of Kingdom Holding, the company that brings together assets spread across half the world with a wealth that Forbes magazine estimates at 17,000 million dollars (approximately 14,000 million euros). He has stakes in Apple, Twitter, Citigroup, Four Seasons and Disney.

Father Khaled bin Talal’s clan is well positioned in the royal family of Saudi Arabia. His grandfather, who died in 2018, was King Salman’s brother and served as finance minister in the early 1960s.

Khaled bin Talal maintains political disagreements with the Saudi administration. He was arrested in 2017 for showing his rejection “of the royal decision to deprive the controversial religious police of the power to carry out arrests”, says El Mundo. He spent several years in prison, but is currently free and awaits the improvement of his children. Mohamed and Al Walid bin Khalid bin Talal al Saud.

Sources: El Mundo and El Comercio newspapers.