A courtroom in Saudi Arabia has sentenced to demise the brother of an exiled dissident, convicting him of disloyalty to the dominion’s rulers in a case constructed round nameless social media accounts the place he shared criticism of the federal government.

The defendant, Mohammed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, a 54-year-old retired instructor, had nearly no public profile earlier than he was arrested final 12 months and accused of treason. One of the principle social media accounts cited in his courtroom case, on the platform X — previously often called Twitter — has eight followers.

The sentence, which was handed down in July, was additionally primarily based on a confession attributed to Mr. al-Ghamdi after his arrest, wherein he mentioned he seen the king and crown prince as “tyrants” and “agents of the West” who have been combating in opposition to Islam, in keeping with courtroom paperwork reviewed by The New York Times.

One doable rationalization for his prosecution was provided by his elder brother, Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, a conservative Muslim cleric and vocal dissident who lives in exile in Britain. He mentioned the authorities gave the impression to be utilizing his youthful brother to punish him.

“The posts that my brother wrote, no one knew about, and they didn’t spread — no one saw them even,” Saeed al-Ghamdi instructed The Times on Friday. “It appears to me they wanted to spite or harm or try to disturb me with this case.”

The case is a part of a crackdown on dissent that has deepened below Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 38, the dominion’s de facto ruler.

Over the previous eight years, the prince has rendered the once-ultraconservative nation practically unrecognizable, overseeing a plan to diversify its oil-dependent financial system and ending a slew of spiritual and social restrictions that many Saudis discovered suffocating. At the identical time, the modest house for political discourse has contracted.

Since 2017, the Saudi authorities have arrested a whole bunch of critics throughout the political spectrum, together with non secular clerics, Snapchat influencers, billionaires and a number of other of the prince’s personal cousins. The 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist, by Saudi brokers in Istanbul, which drew worldwide outrage, was essentially the most brazen instance of the push. A former Saudi authorities insider, Mr. Khashoggi had fled the nation and grow to be an outspoken critic.

In current years, harsher punishments than ever are being meted out to residents who criticize their authorities, even because the accused have grow to be much less outstanding.

After being detained, the youthful Mr. al-Ghamdi confessed to holding non secular and political opinions that prosecutors portrayed as grave violations of the dominion’s broadly worded counterterrorism legislation, in keeping with the courtroom paperwork. In the confession attributed to him after his arrest, he acknowledged that he was behind the nameless social media accounts in query.

His lawyer denied the fees and mentioned that his consumer “loved and was loyal to this nation,” in keeping with the courtroom paperwork. The lawyer argued that his consumer had neurological and psychiatric situations that ought to void any statements attributed to him.

Despite that, a panel of judges sentenced Mr. al-Ghamdi to demise, in keeping with a duplicate of the ruling. The verdict is open to enchantment.

The Saudi authorities’s Center for International Communication, which handles inquiries from the worldwide news media, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

But Saudi officers have argued that an iron fist is critical to take care of management as Prince Mohammed oversees huge adjustments, like dismantling guidelines that yoked ladies to male guardians. In a 2018 interview, Prince Mohammed known as the arrests a “small price” to “get rid of extremism and terrorism without civil war.”

Many of the non secular figures imprisoned by the Saudi authorities maintain related views to the elder Mr. al-Ghamdi, who has criticized corruption and political repression whereas talking out in opposition to parts of the social adjustments, together with efforts to rewrite the Islamic studies curriculum in schools to take away content material that the federal government designated as extremist.

Recently, he lambasted a performance in Riyadh by Iggy Azalea, the Australian musical artist, wherein she by accident split open her bodysuit whereas rapping the lyrics “Preaching about prophets/ it ain’t no one man can stop us/bow down to a goddess.”

“The perversion has reached extremes that are not possible to imagine,” the elder Mr. al-Ghamdi wrote on X.

Plenty of Saudis have celebrated the marginalization of such views below Prince Mohammed — arguing that ultraconservatives dominated the nation for too lengthy and smothered their private freedoms. At the identical time, many Saudis categorical concern concerning the pace of social adjustments and discomfort with what they view because the erosion of their nation’s Islamic id.

The prosecution’s case in opposition to the youthful Mr. al-Ghamdi gave the impression to be constructed round nameless accounts that he maintained on X and YouTube and his following and sharing posts from outstanding Saudi dissidents.

In a handful of unique posts, he criticized the Saudi royal household and different Arab leaders, saying that they have been all “Zionists on the inside.” In a confession attributed to him by the prosecutors, he additionally indicated help for the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group that the dominion has designated as a terrorist group, and mentioned that the king and crown prince have been “loyal to the infidels and agents of the Jews.”

The judges convicted him of prices together with disloyalty to the dominion’s rulers, “challenging the piety and justice of the king and crown prince” and “supporting terrorist ideology.”

Saudi officers typically argue that once they imprison non secular conservatives, they’re merely combating the extremism that Western critics have lengthy accused the dominion of spreading.

“When they speak, you tell us they’re preaching hate,” Adel al-Jubeir, a senior authorities minister, mentioned in an unusually candid lecture in 2018. “When we put them in jail, you tell us, ‘Why did you stop them from preaching? You took away their freedom of speech.’ It’s a ‘damned if we do, damned if we don’t’ situation.”

Rights teams say that the dominion’s counterterrorism and anti-cybercrime legal guidelines are so broadly worded that they’re wielded to silence many types of peaceable dissent. Saudis imprisoned in recent times embrace leftist intellectuals, feminist activists and others who merely criticized authorities insurance policies. Under Prince Mohammed, the speed of executions has additionally sharply elevated, two rights teams wrote in a report this 12 months.

The elder Mr. al-Ghamdi mentioned he believed the authorities have been making an attempt to punish him by way of his brother’s case.

Under Prince Mohammed, the Saudi opposition in exile — as soon as primarily Islamist in orientation — has grown more and more various, vocal and properly organized. The state has struggled to silence dissent overseas, typically turning to new instruments.

Many exiles say that their relations again residence are barred from touring overseas. Others, just like the elder Mr. al-Ghamdi, say they’ve confronted strain to return to the dominion, the place they concern they might face imminent arrest. He urged “all free people in the world” to attempt to save his brother and different prisoners in Saudi Arabia.

“My brother is unknown. He’s not famous. He used anonymous accounts to write posts, and his followers could have been counted on two hands,” he mentioned. “But they arrested him and put him in solitary confinement for a period of almost four months.”