Riyadh’s Ritz back in business after use as ‘prison’
LEAPING bronze stallions adorn the lobby, Western consultants hobnob over tea and scones and a sumptuous buffet is laid out – Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton appears exactly as it was before it became a gilded prison.
Guests trickled in after the palatial 500-room hotel reopened on Sunday to find few signs of the three-month incarceration of princes, ministers and business moguls in an unprecedented anti-corruption purge.
“The only difference is that the front gates are open,” a smiling hotel employee told guests checking in.
“The guest list is also quite different, I imagine,” a Western diplomat said, sipping a cardamom latte in the ornate lobby as a traditional oud musician performed.
Many of the 381 suspects, including flamboyant billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal – dubbed the Warren Buffett of Saudi Arabia – have been released in recent weeks in exchange for financial settlements.
Other high-profile detainees included former National Guard chief Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, construction magnate Bakr bin Laden and media mogul Waleed bin Ibrahim.
Each detainee was given his own room – with room service and television, but no internet or phone access.
Sharp objects like glass items and curtain cords were also removed to prevent suicide attempts.
All those services and items were available in an eighth-floor deluxe room that a reporter checked into on Sunday.
It was impossible to know whether a detainee had stayed there or the room had been refurbished.
Many of the high-profile detainees are believed to have been kept in royal suites, comprising bedrooms, a kitchen, a diningroom and a livingroom.
As service resumed at the hotel, staff appeared to have been instructed not to talk to journalists about the purge, launched by powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
One staff member said he was away on holiday for the past three months.
Another said he was present right through the Kafkaesque ordeal, but declined to say any more under the watchful gaze of his superiors.
When asked how the crackdown had affected the brand of the hotel – widely labelled a “luxury prison” – a public relations manager declined to comment, calling the matter too sensitive.
There was only a trickle of guests, but the front manager apologised for being unable to offer some guests a front-facing “fountain view” room.