Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), has facilitated and benefited from human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 95-page report, “The Man Who Bought the World: Rights Abuses Linked to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Its Chairman, Mohammad bin Salman,” found that Saudi Arabia’s vast fossil fuel-derived state wealth is effectively controlled by one person, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Human Rights Watch found that the crown prince wields this enormous economic power in a largely arbitrary and highly personalized manner rather than for the Saudi people’s benefit and that the PIF is used to whitewash the Saudi government’s abuses…

The report is based on a review of government statements, Saudi court documents; Saudi laws and government decrees; documents released during court proceedings in Canada and the United States; company records and reports; investigations and analyses by journalists financial experts, and academics; as well as interviews with Saudi activists and dissidents, journalists, experts, and lawyers with long experience in Saudi Arabia.

The PIF has benefited directly from serious human rights abuses linked to its chairman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS…