Talal bin Abdulaziz was a senior member of the Saudi Arabian royal family — a son of the modern kingdom’s founder and first ruler, half-brother of its subsequent monarchs, and uncle of the present and deeply controversial Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Like many Saudi princes, Talal was also immensely wealthy, but he was a far from conventional member of a dynasty long renowned for its caution and conservatism. He was defiantly liberal, a staunch advocate of reform, and a champion of greater democracy and women’s rights in a kingdom where both concepts were alien.
The Red Prince, as he was known, paid for his views. In the early 1960s Talal was effectively exiled after founding the Free Princes Movement to campaign for political liberalisation.