Luxury lockups for Saudi princes
Its plush carpets and glittering chandeliers are fit for a prince, but for several senior Saudi royals the ballroom of the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton is a gilded cage.
Video footage emerged Tuesday showing the luxury hotel transformed into a bizarre prison camp with some of the kingdom’s richest and most powerful individuals.
Some 50 members of the Saudi elite, including 11 princes, are facing charges of money laundering, bribery, extortion and abuse of public office after being rounded up in an extraordinary series of arrests on Sunday morning as part of an anti-corruption purge.
The arrests sent shock waves through the country and have been interpreted by some as a purge of rivals to Mohammed bin Salman, the 32-year-old Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
“There is no jail for royals,” said a Saudi businessman with ties to the government. “The purge is one thing, but a prince cannot be seen imprisoning fellow princes along with common criminals. Choosing that hotel it is a sign to the world: Mohammed bin Salman is in charge and no one is too rich to be brought down.”
The Saudi information ministry said there was “no truth” in online rumours that another prince, Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd, a son of the late king Fahd, was killed while resisting arrest.
Two weeks ago the hotel hosted a conference in which Mohammed bin Salman announced plans for sweeping reforms. It was dubbed “Davos in the desert” and was widely attended by foreign dignitaries and business leaders.
The hotel’s reluctant guests this week include some of the kingdom’s wealthiest individuals. The 11 princes alone are worth a combined $93 billion, and include Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, chairman of investment firm Kingdom Holding and owner of London’s Savoy hotel; Nasser bin Aqeel alTayyar, founder of Al Tayyar Travel; and Amr al-Dabbagh, chairman of builder Red Sea International.
Saudi banks have frozen more than 1,200 accounts of both individuals and companies as part of the purge, Reuters said. Authorities have said assets found to have been obtained illegally may be seized by the state.
Jane Kinnenmont of Chatham House, a London thinktank, said the purge would prove popular with the Saudi public. “Corruption is a real issue in Saudi Arabia and one that people are genuinely angry about,” she said.
U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to publicly endorse the crackdown. Writing on Twitter, he said he had “great confidence” in the Crown Prince and his father, King Salman.