{"id":395681,"date":"2018-01-27T10:44:30","date_gmt":"2018-01-27T10:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=395681"},"modified":"2018-01-27T10:44:30","modified_gmt":"2018-01-27T10:44:30","slug":"saudi-arabia-elites-released-paying-corruption-settlements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=395681","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia elites released after paying corruption settlements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful men detained in November in an anti-corruption purge have been released.<\/p>\n

Among those set free are Waleed al-Ibrahim, the head of MBC television network, and Khalid al-Tuwaijiri, a former chief of the royal court.<\/p>\n

They have paid substantial financial settlements, reports say – though the amounts have not been made public.<\/p>\n

More than 200 princes, politicians, and wealthy businessmen were detained in the crackdown.<\/p>\n

Since then, they have been held in the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh, which is due to reopen on 14 February.<\/p>\n

The settlements are likely to have been costly.<\/p>\n

<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Media reports suggest that Mr al-Ibrahim’s deal may have included his controlling share in MBC – the largest media company in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The anti-corruption drive was instigated by Prince Mohammed bin Salman – who has been accused of using the investigation to remove opponents and consolidate his power.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the purge,\u00a0Saudi Arabia’s attorney general said at least $100bn (\u00a376bn) had been misused through systemic corruption\u00a0and embezzlement going back decades.<\/p>\n

The detentions – and the expensive settlements – are being characterised by the state as an attempt to recover those funds.<\/p>\n

Many more of those detained remain in the Ritz Carlton under guard, until it reopens for Valentine’s Day in mid-February.<\/p>\n

Those who do not reach settlements before then are expected to be sent to prison to await trial.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, one of the highest-profile detainees, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, told Reuters news agency on Saturday that he expected to be cleared of wrongdoing and “released from custody within days”.<\/p>\n

The billionaire – who is one of the country’s richest people – said he expected to keep full control of his investment firm.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful men detained in November in an anti-corruption purge have been released. Among those set free are Waleed al-Ibrahim, the head of MBC television network, and Khalid al-Tuwaijiri, a former chief of the royal court. They have paid substantial financial settlements, reports say – though the amounts have not been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":395683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[16545,747],"class_list":["post-395681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-elites","tag-saudi-arabia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=395681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/395683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=395681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=395681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=395681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}