Who is Saudi Arabia’s Sleeping Prince? Why is he in hospital for 17 years?

Saudi Princess Rima bint Talal tweeted a photo of Prince Al-Waleed bin Khaled bin Talal, known as the ‘Sleeping Prince’ alongside his father Khaled bin Talal who refuses to turn off his child’s life support.

“May God heal him. My love, may God protect you”, the tweet said.

The tweet was later deleted.

Prince Al-Waleed has been on a ventilator since 2005 after suffering a brain haemorrhage during a car accident while studying at a military college.

His father, the brother of billionaire Saudi business tycoon Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, has refused to give up on his son and insists on monitoring his condition with hopes that he may one day wake up.

الله يشفيه ويعافيه حبيبي ويحفظكم 🤍

pic.twitter.com/jfYGgISKj1

— ريما بنت طلال (@Rima_Talal) May 3, 2022

In October 2020, he moved his hand in response to someone conversing by his bedside, a video that emerged online showed.

“Hello, hi,” the person says to the prince, prompting him to lift two fingers.

“Let me see, higher, higher!” she says in a successful attempt to encourage more movement.

The last time such a movement took place was years earlier in 2015.

His father Prince Khalid was among those detained for 11 months for criticizing a crackdown on the kingdom’s elite that saw dozens of princes, officials, and tycoons imprisoned at Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton hotel in 2017.

He was re-arrested briefly the following year.