#SaudiCables: The assassination plot and the $10bn pharaoh's ransom

The first revelations from more than 60,000 Saudi diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on Friday have revealed an alleged assassination plot against the South Sudanese president, and an alleged deal between the Muslim Brotherhood and Gulf states to release ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in exchange for $10 billion.

One of the classified documents appears show that Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal wrote to the Saudi king about an Egyptian-Sudanese plot to assassinate South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit in 2011, after his country gained independence.

According to the leaked correspondence, Egyptian secret police sent three of their "most dangerous agents" to stay in the posh Khartoum Garden City district to "come up with a joint plan with Sudanese intelligence to assassinate Kiir and some of his aides".

Sudan and South Sudan have long had a fractured relationship over how to divide South Sudan's oil revenues, which led to a military confrontation in 2012. In August 2014, rumours circulated of an assassination attempt against Kiir in Ethiopia as he attended an international conference.

Another of the leaked documents quoted an anonymous Egyptian official as saying senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat al-Shater accepted a Gulf-proposed deal to release ousted president Hosni Mubarak in exchange for $10bn - as Egyptians "would not benefit from him being imprisoned".

The document included a handwritten note saying the "ransom" was not a "good idea", and that the case might be resolved if the former president spent two years in jail.

Shater's former personal assistant and son-in-law Ayman Abd al-Ghani has denied the validity of the document to al-Araby's Arabic service.

"If this official's statement was true then why weren't Mubarak and his sons handed over to Saudi Arabia?" he asked. "And since when have Egyptian officials been reliable?"

Last week, the Brotherhood heavyweight and businessman was sentenced to death by hanging, along with former President Mohammad Morsi and other senior Brotherhood members.

The Saudi government seems to have acknowledged the authenticity of the documents in general but warns that some faked documents may be included among the authentic cables.

WikiLeaks is in the process of publishing more than 500,000 Saudi diplomatic documents to the internet, the transparency website said, a move that echoes its famous release of US State Department cables in 2010.