Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Saleh Al-Arayedh, a karate trainer for self-defense in Saudi Arabia, sparked an interaction between activists on social media after claiming to train Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when he was young and that the latter has a “brown belt.” “.
This came in an interview that Al-Areed gave on the Gulf Rotana channel, in which he said: “I had the honor of His Royal Highness Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince, and even their Royal Highnesses Princes Prince Turki bin Salman, Prince Khalid bin Salman, Prince Nayef bin Salman, Prince Bandar bin Salman and Prince Rakan bin Salman..”
He continued, “The truth is, we participated with them for nearly 5 years as karate training, as well as supervisors of other sports programs. The training was in the palace, and with them (the princes) some colleagues were training with them…”
He added: “The training was like what they say very, very seriously. His Highness the Emir was very keen on training in the issue of performance. Even after a period of development, the Prince, God reminded him of good, wanted someone to be trained in weapons. You know the game of jiu-jitsu and the game of swords (self-defense against weapons).” He reached the brown belt, and after he traveled to America, I think he took the black belt.
CNN in Arabic contacted the Saudi authorities to obtain a comment on Al-Arid’s statement, without a response as of writing this report.