Saudi Arabian newspapers on Monday shed light on the diplomatic crisis that has erupted between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The Gulf kingdom withdrew its ambassador in Cairo following protests outside the embassy over the arrest of an Egyptian lawyer in Jeddah.
Ahmed al-Gizawy, a lawyer and a human rights activist, was first reported to have been detained earlier this month for insulting the Saudi monarch, but a later statement by the Saudi embassy in Cairo said he was apprehended at the airport in Jeddah for possessing narcotic pills.
Al-Riyadh newspaper quoted a senior Egyptian military official as saying on Sunday that the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces rejects any action that could disrupt the strong ties between the two countries or lead to an assault on diplomatic missions.
The paper added that the Egyptian official attacked what he described as "the negative role played by media outlets by further igniting the crisis with baseless reporting."
The website of the newspaper Okaz published an extensive report on its home page.
"Who is behind Gizawy?" the author wondered, pointing to "a preset scheme and political motivations" behind the drug smuggling attempt.
Okaz added that Gizawy was first an apprentice lawyer, but later managed to obtain an operation license for his law firm with the help of "parties that had recruited him."
The same paper added that Gizawy's lawsuits against the kingdom's foreign minister and its Cairo ambassador were part of an "organized campaign" that also extended to other Gulf monarchs, such as Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain and Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani of Qatar.
Al-Watan, also on its website's home page, focused on Cairo's official apology — particularly by People's Assembly's Speaker Saad al-Katatny — to Saudi Arabia and its ambassador for the "demagogic" protests outside the embassy, and reported a new attempt by another Egyptian to smuggle narcotics to the kingdom.
