4 sentenced to 10 yrs in prison for acquiring Kuwaiti nationality by fraud

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KUWAIT CITY, Jan 8: The Court of Cassation presided over by Judge Saleh Al-Murshed overturned the verdict issued by a lower court which sentenced two men and two women to ten-year imprisonment on charges of acquiring the Kuwaiti citizenship fraudulently.

The judge instead refrained from pronouncing punishment against them. The defense legal team said the charges against their clients had exceeded the statute of limitation, and that the prosecution lacked substantial evidences against their clients that would suggest they committed the offense, adding that the charges lacked principles of criminal intent.

The defense team stressed that the decision to charge their clients is against Article 175 of the Penal Code which stipulates that the confession of the accused only applies to him/her and does not affect others. They said the confession should be unequivocally direct and linked to the charges leveled against the confessor.

Meanwhile, in a similar case, the Criminal Court presided over by Judge Abdullah Al-Osaimi sentenced three individuals to seven-year imprisonment, and another to five year imprisonment, and ordered then to return the amount they received in their capacity as citizens after acquiring Kuwaiti citizenship fraudulently.

According to the case file, the authority in charge of following up issues related to citizenship managed to gather information from its confidential sources regarding a Syrian father and his four children who managed to buy Kuwaiti citizenship from any Kuwaiti ready to do so.

The Syrian father managed to find three Kuwaitis in 1998 who added the names of his children under their names in order for them to acquire the Kuwaiti citizenship in exchange of about KD 100 thousand for such a service.

By Jaber Al-Hamoud Al-Seyassah Staff and Agencies

This news has been read 15451 times!