Saudi Arabia says it has netted £76 billion from the businessmen and princes detained at Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, as its three-month corruption shakedown draws to a close.
Fifty-six of the 381 people arrested in early November have been jailed after refusing to pay fines to secure their freedom, while others have been released without charge. The rest, who admitted to the charges levelled against them, have been released after handing over property, commercial entities, securities and cash to the government. Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, regarded as the kingdom’s richest businessman, and the nephew of King Salman, claimed on Saturday that he had not surrendered any of his $17 billion fortune for his release, but conceded that others may have paid for theirs.
Yesterday morning Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb, the attorney-general, said that the investigation had finished and that 400 billion Saudi riyals had been recouped from detainees who had embezzled state funds.
“Negotiations and settlements with those individuals who were charged with corruption were concluded, and cases were transferred to the Public Prosecution Office to complete the relevant procedures,” Sheikh Mojeb said.
The last detainees have been released from their luxury suites and the hotel is reopening to paying guests. The government is estimated to have spent £320,000 a day on keeping its super-rich prisoners in the comfort they are accustomed to, while forensic accountants trawled through their finances.
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Those transferred to prisons will find themselves in much reduced circumstances: the country’s jails are often overcrowded and poorly equipped.
The investigation, which was led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was welcomed by many ordinary Saudis who were dismayed by levels of corruption. Transparency International gave Saudi Arabia a rating of 46 in the public sector, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 very clean.
The prince, 32, is considered by many to be a reformer who wants to modernise the closed, conservative and oil-dependent kingdom. He has announced plans for a tourist resort along the Red Sea coast where western women will be able to wear bikinis, as well as having overseen the repeal of the law banning women from driving. In the past year women have been allowed into sports stadiums for the first time, and cinemas are to open in Riyadh after 35 years.
Critics, however, have condemned his investigation as a show of power by a prince who wants to seize control of the country and remove any rivals. The exact charges against the detainees remain hazy and none has faced official trials. International investors retreated from Saudi Arabia as news of the purge broke but the country’s markets have bounced back since it ended.