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First in line to succeed King Abdullah had colon cancer and was being treated abroad when he died The heir to the Saudi throne, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz, has died abroad after illness, state TV said. He was 85 years old. The death of the crown prince – who was the half brother of the ailing Saudi King Abdullah and had colon cancer – opens questions about the succession in the oil-rich kingdom. Sultan was the kingdom’s deputy prime minister and the minister of defence and aviation. He underwent surgery in New York in February 2009 for an undisclosed illness and spent nearly a year abroad recuperating in the United States and at a palace in Agadir, Morocco. The report did not say where outside the kingdom he died or elaborate on Sultan’s illness. The most likely candidate for the throne after Sultan is Prince Nayef, the powerful interior minister in charge of internal security forces. After Sultan fell ill the king gave Nayef an implicit nod in 2009 by naming him second deputy prime minister, traditionally the post of the third in line. Anyone who rises to the throne is likely to maintain the kingdom’s close alliance with the United States. But there could be internal differences. Abdullah has been seen as a reformer, making incremental changes to improve the position of women, for example, and to modernise the kingdom despite some backlash from the ultra-conservative Wahhabi clerics who give the royal family the religious legitimacy needed to rule. Nayef is often seen as closer to the clerics. Sultan was a central figure in the world’s top oil exporter who dominated defence policy and was long seen as a future king. A defence minister for almost half a century before becoming crown prince to Abdullah in 2005, Sultan built a powerbase in his control of the regular armed forces and his status as one of seven full brothers born to the kingdom’s founder, King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, by his favourite wife. He oversaw a defence spending spree that made the kingdom one of the world’s biggest arms buyers. Sultan’s death may put in motion for the first time an “allegiance council” consisting of sons and grandsons of the kingdom’s founder. The council was set up by his half-brother, Abdullah, to vote on future kings and their heirs. Sultan, who was born in the mid-1920s, had an intestinal cyst removed in 2005 and spent months abroad for treatment and recreation. While Saudi Arabia insisted he was fully cured, diplomats in Riyadh said he gradually retreated from participating in decision-making and often worked only for one or two hours a day. Many of his duties had been informally shifted to other princes, most notably to his son Khaled who led Saudi and Arab forces during the 1991 war to remove Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army from Kuwait. Prince Khaled, who is assistant defence minister, is the owner of influential pan-Arab daily newspaper al-Hayat. Saudi Arabia Middle East guardian.co.uk