Saudi Billionaire Prince Alwaleed Released

Date: 27 January 2018 - 21:23

News ID: ۴۹۳۵۳

RIYADH (Dispatches) – Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was released from detention on Saturday, family sources said, more than two months after he was taken into custody in the kingdom’s sweeping crackdown on corruption.

His release came hours after he told Reuters in an interview at Riyadh’s opulent Ritz-Carlton hotel that he expected to be cleared of any wrongdoing and be freed within days.

A senior Saudi official said Prince Alwaleed’s release had come about after a financial settlement was reached with the attorney general.

"The attorney general has approved this morning the settlement that was reached with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and the prince returned home at 1100 A.M.,” the official told Reuters, without giving details on the terms.

But the decision to free him, and the release of several other well-known tycoons on Friday, suggested the main part of the corruption probe was winding down after it sent shockwaves through Saudi Arabia’s business and political establishment.

"He has arrived home,” one source in Prince Alwaleed’s family told Reuters.

The Saudi prince was one of the businessmen and royals rounded up in November 2017 in an alleged "anti-corruption campaign” spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Observers said the campaign was actually meant to consolidate bin Salman’s power and silence his critics.

Bin Talal’s detention and the ensuing reports regarding his situation in custody made headlines around the world, putting pressure on bin Salman, who was linked to pricey art and real estate purchases at the height of the "anti-graft” clampdown.

On November 9, 2017, the Middle East Eye (MEE) news portal revealed that some of those detained in the Saudi crackdown were beaten and tortured so badly during their arrest or subsequent interrogations.

However, the report added, there are no wounds to the faces of those caught up so they will look normal when they next appear in public.

Bin Talal had reportedly been hung upside down and beaten at Ritz-Carlton Hotel. His father also went on hunger strike in protest at the detention of three of his sons as part of the kingdom’s purported anti-graft campaign.

Elsewhere in his interview, bin Talal, who is a nephew of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, claimed that he had been well treated, rejecting reports of mistreatment and of being moved from Ritz-Carlton Hotel to a prison.

He further claimed that he was expected to keep control of his global investment company Kingdom Holding without being required to give up assets to the government.