How Saudi elite became five-star prisoners at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton
Detention of more than 30 senior figures in hotel highlights how kingdom depends on tribal loyalty to secure royal family’s reign
Martin Chulov, Middle East correspondent
The Guardian, Nov. 6, 2017
At 11pm on Saturday, guests at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh got a rude awakening. Businesspeople and consultants who were staying in one of Riyadh’s most opulent digs, along with diners and visitors, were all told to assemble in the lobby with their bags. No one knew why.
As guests made their way to buses to be taken to other hotels in the Saudi capital, senior officials were making plans for new arrivals who weren’t prepared for a night away from home, let alone a spell in a five-star hotel. They were soon to become the highest-profile prisoners in the modern kingdom’s history. And the most pampered.
From midnight, buses arrived in the sprawling complex disgorging princes, business leaders, other royals, their guards and their captors. The arrivals marked the start of an extraordinary episode that exposed the kingdom’s elite to rare public scrutiny and showed that, even when accused of high crime, the powerful maintain privileges.
By dawn on Sunday, more than 30 of Saudi Arabia’s most senior figures, among them blood relatives of senior rulers, were locked inside the hotel, accused of corruption. Their ignominious arrests were the talk of the country, and so too was the fact that they were far from a prison cell, where most citizens facing similar charges could expect to find themselves.
The arrests had been decreed by the monarch, King Salman, and carried out by his powerful son and heir, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who has committed to overturning most of the established order in his heady six months in office. But even for the ambitious crown prince, taking on the establishment to this extent was a risky step – and he needed to take precautions.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/06/how-saudi-elite-became-five-star-prisoners-at-the-riyadh-ritz-carlton
Wow. What timing.
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