The palatial Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh may re-open in mid-February 2018 after it served as a makeshift detainment center for Saudi elites accused of corruption charges.
The hotel has re-opened its online reservation system, accepting new guests as soon as February 14th. Reservations attempted before that date re-direct to a notification that no rooms are available at the hotel. The Ritz Carlton website also notes that “hotel telephone lines are currently disconnected until further notice.”
According to the BBC, a spokesman at the Ritz-Carlton confirmed the hotel was taking reservations from mid-February but with the proviso that bookings might still be cancelled at short notice.
The re-opening of the hotel indicates that the corruption crackdown on November 4th may be winding down. Several prominent Saudi government officials and businessmen who were detained in the crackdown have settled with the government. Former minister of finance Ibrahim Al-Assaf was detained and later released after reaching a settlement, according to reports. Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, former head of Saudi Arabia’s National Guard and son of the late King Abdullah, settled for a reported $1 billion.
Shortly after being released, both Al-Assaf and Prince Miteb were seen in public.
However, the fate of arguably its most famous detainee, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has yet to be settled. According to a Reuters report on Sunday, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is “negotiating a possible settlement with authorities but so far has not agreed on terms,” a senior Saudi official told the news service. “He offered a certain figure but it doesn’t meet the figure required from him, and until today the attorney-general hasn’t approved it.”
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
International businessmen and others have rushed to defend Prince Alwaleed. “I’m only aware of what I’ve read in the press, and I can’t speculate,” Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp. co-founder said in an emailed statement as reported in Bloomberg. “Prince Alwaleed has been an important partner in my foundation’s work to ensure that kids around the world receive life-saving vaccinations. We’ve worked together to help stop the spread of polio, measles, and other preventable diseases. His commitment to philanthropy is inspiring.”
Writing in the New York Times in November, Andrew Ross Sorkin noted that “because [Alwaleed] was the longtime public face of finance for Saudi Arabia, Prince Alwaleed’s arrest — and the lack of transparency around what has happened to him — is causing increasing consternation among his various business partners and in much of the Western business community….His arrest has also created a sense of uncertainty among investors about whether to do business with Saudi Arabia and, by extension, could affect some of its partners, like Masayoshi Son’s $100 billion SoftBank fund, in which the kingdom holds a 45 percent stake. It could also affect the highly anticipated public offering of the state-owned oil company, Aramco, planned for next year.”
Prince Alwaleed one of the world’s richest people, said last year that he would donate his entire wealth to philanthropic causes over the coming years to help build a “better world of tolerance, acceptance, equality and opportunity for all,” Alwaleed said in a statement on his website.
