More arrests in Saudi Arabia anti-graft crackdown

RIYADH: Saudi Arabian authorities have made further arrests in an anti-corruption crackdown on the kingdom’s political and business elite, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday.

Dozens of royal family members, officials and business executives had already been held in the purge announced on Saturday and they faced allegations of money laundering, bribery, extortion and exploiting public office for personal gain.

But the sources, speaking yesterday, said a number of additional individuals suspected of wrongdoing had been detained in a continuation of the crackdown.

A number of those held most recently included individuals with links to the immediate family of the late crown prince and defence minister Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, who died in 2011, the sources said.

Others appeared to be lowerlevel managers and officials, one of the sources said.

Many Saudis had cheered the purge as an attack on the theft of state funds by the rich, and United States President Donald Trump said those arrested had been “milking their country for years”.

But some Western officials expressed unease at the possible reaction in the opaque tribal and royal politics of the world’s largest oil exporter.

The US State Department said on Tuesday it had urged Saudi Arabia to carry out any prosecution of officials detained in a sweeping crackdown on corruption in a “fair and transparent” manner. Reuters