KUWAIT CITY, Aug 1: The Appeals Court overturned a 5-year jail sentence against an officer of the Interior Ministry accused of forging official documents (visas). The defense counsel, lawyer Abdullaziz Al-Noumis argued that his client had been convicted based on conjecture. He held that accusations against his client were weak and baseless. Also, he lauded the Appeals Court for correcting the initial ruling to serve justice.

Duo not guilty: The Court of Appeals acquitted two Kuwaiti youths of kidnapping, swindling and stealing but fined them KD 300. Case files indicate an unidentified person asked the youths for directions to a cooperative society. Instead of giving him directions, the youths demanded his money. When he refused, they beat him and dragged him into their car and drove to a certain location where they took his money by force. The Court of First Instance had previously sentenced the two youths to one year in prison and fined them KD 300. However, the Court of Appeals decided to cancel the jail sentence and maintain the fine, taking into consideration the age of the suspects and the fact that they were not involved in any criminal act before.

Lawyers efforts lauded: The Secretary General of Kuwait Journalists Association (KJA) Faisal Al-Qenai lauded efforts the association’s legal consultant Dr Nayef Al-Adwani exerted in the criminal case filed by the parliament’s editors against a member of the association Abdullatif Ashmar. The court cleared Ashmar of any wrong doing and rejected a civil case against him.
In a press release, Al-Qenai was delighted with the closure of the case, which he said was due to the effort and competence of lawyer Adwani who was appointed by the association to handle the case. He pledged the association shall standby its members at all times.

Verdict overturned: The Misdemeanor Court acquitted an employee at a shop that sells ready-made kitchens of commercial cheating. Case files indicate the plaintiff had a deal with the accused to install a ready-made kitchen in his house. However, upon completion of the job he discovered some defects that violate the terms and conditions stipulated in the contract, so he filed a lawsuit against the employee.

Attorney Yousef Saleh Al-Heran, who represented the accused in court, argued that his client has fixed the defects pointed out by the plaintiff but the latter had other demands which are not in line with the contract. The First Instance Court had earlier fined the employee KD 1,000 and ordered the closure of the shop but the Misdemeanor Court overturned this verdict and acquitted the employee based on the pieces of evidence presented by both parties during the hearing on the case.

Slander case begins: The Criminal Court on Monday started hearing the security case filed against Nasser Abel for publishing statements deemed offensive to Gulf nations on his Twitter account.
However, Abel denied the accusation, claiming some unidentified persons have hacked his account and published the offensive comments. He said he deleted the insulting tweets through his iPhone immediately after seeing them. During interrogation, Abel admitted he sympathized with the Bahrainis who demanded change and participated in a peaceful march of solidarity in Kuwait. He added the email found in his phone on how to make explosives was junk.