Hotel authorities did not permit AFP to film inside the hotel.Many of the 381 suspects, including flamboyant billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal — dubbed the Warren Buffett of Saudi Arabia -- have been released in recent weeks in exchange for what officials call financial settlements.He also showed off the hotels Italian, Chinese and Oriental restaurant, boasting a lavish seafood bar with poached mussels, shrimp and calamari.All those services and items were available in an eighth-floor deluxe room that an AFP reporter checked into on Sunday.
Too sensitiveOne staff member said he Yanxin was away on holiday for the last three months."Its good to be back.Other high-profile detainees included former National Guard chief Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, construction magnate Bakr bin Laden and media mogul Waleed bin Ibrahim.“The guest list is also quite different I imagine," quipped a Western diplomat, sipping a cardamom latte in the ornate lobby as a traditional oud musician performed in the background.Guests trickled in after the palatial 500-room hotel reopened on Sunday to find few signs of the three-month incarceration of princes, ministers and business moguls in an unprecedented anti-corruption purge..Many of the high-profile detainees are believed to have been kept in apartment-like royal suites, which comprise bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room and a living room, according to the hotel website. Another said he was present throughout the Kafkaesque ordeal, but declined to say anymore under the watchful gaze of his superiors.
"Fear bigger than resentmentThe hotels reopening appeared to be as shrouded in secrecy as the crackdown itself.But the cafe in the lobby saw a handful of Saudi families, enjoying the novelty of taking selfies at the famous hotel.But proponents of the crackdown say it reached its objective of prompting "behavioural change" among the once-untouchable elite -- seen widely as a living embodiment of corruption."The crackdown has also succeeded in telling people to fall in line" with Prince Mohammeds so-called Vision 2030 program of reforms for a post-oil era, said the Western diplomat. All the sites were largely empty."The only difference is that the front gates are open," a smiling hotel employee told guests checking in.Riyadh: Leaping bronze stallions adorn the lobby, Western consultants hobnob over tea and scones and a sumptuous buffet is laid out — Riyadhs Ritz-Carlton appears exactly as it was before it became a gilded prison.