![Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi [Capital/Facebook]](https://i0.wp.com/d2.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017_11-Mohammed-Hussein-Al-Amoudi23172762_10155919126799923_4454544815445868390_n.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
Saudi Arabia has released the Saudi-Ethiopian businessman Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi following more than 14 months of detention in a nation-wide crackdown on corruption, official Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) reported yesterday.
“The Saudi authorities released Al-Amoudi on Sunday after Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had pressured the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman to release the largest investor,” EBC said.
Al-Amoudi was among scores of Saudi businessmen and government officials rounded up in Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel in November 2017 as part of Salman’s alleged anti-corruption campaign. His release came following the acquittal of five other Saudi businessmen last week and also after the kingdom has been suffering a global backlash over the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Turkey’s Istanbul.
Born in Ethiopia and raised in Saudi Arabia to a Saudi father and an Ethiopian mother, Al-Amoudi was called by Forbes as the wealthiest man in Ethiopia and the second-richest in the kingdom. In 2016, the American magazine valued his fortune at more than $10 billion.
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