Loopholes that favor prisoners – Series of MoI errors

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KUWAIT CITY, June 18: The series of tampering and violations of the law continue in the Ministry of Interior. It has recorded a new cycle of permanent errors, which, instead of helping in convicting an accused person, paved way for the judiciary to declare him innocent. This is what usually happens when a drug addict is arrested, and the drugs in his possession are seized. He ends up being acquitted by the judiciary due to flawed inspection procedure without a legal warrant. A new episode in this series of mistakes was recorded in the Central Prison.

According to informed security sources, a prison officer had seized the phone of an inmate named Fouad Salehi, who was sentenced to four years in prison for forgery, in the case known as the “Iranian Fouad Network”.

Instead of working according to the legal procedures, referring it to the investigation body – the Public Prosecution – and requesting its release for collecting criminal evidence, the Minister of Interior Sheikh Ahmad Al-Nawaf agreed to hand the phone over to the State Security Department. Information from the phone was leaked, and the officer who arrested him was transferred even though he had performed his duty.

This procedure provides a lifeline for Fouad Salehi and disavows any contents in the phone that could have been evidence of conviction that he cannot challenge. With the minister’s approval to send the phone from prison to the State Security Department, any evidence that might be present in the phone became invalid. The law prohibits unlocking the phone except in accordance with specific procedures and through the Public Prosecution and Forensic Evidence Unit. The sources said, “The Public Prosecution is the body legally entrusted with supervising prisons. An authorized public attorney supervises and undertakes the tasks, and must be notified of any crimes that occur in prisons.

Legally
The beneficiary of this unprofessional and irresponsible procedure is the accused Fouad Salehi, because what the minister did enabled the accused to challenge any evidence that can be found in the phone against him. It gives him the excuse that the phone was opened by a party that is not an authorized authority and without permission. He can accuse the State Security Department of being the ones to forge and enter false information into it”.

The sources stressed that no such procedure has occurred in the history of the Ministry of Interior. They asked, “How can they handle this situation related to an accused person like Fouad Salehi with such recklessness? Why was the prison officer punished for seizing the phone? How does a citizen secure his privacy? How can a citizen be secure that evidence will not be lost to hold the corrupt accountable, as they lost it in this incident?” The sources highlighted that Minister Al-Nawaf said he will not accept the injustice of anyone, irrespective of who he is.

However, they asked, “How does this statement apply to the transfer of the Central Prison officer?” The sources said, “In such actions, injustice has occurred, rights have been lost and corruption has increased. The criminal is not held accountable because of the ignorance of the procedures and the lack of proper application. “Three catastrophic mistakes were committed in this incident – opening a phone that was seized without legal capacity, referring a prisoner’s phone to State Security, which is not the authorized body, and then leaking the contents of the phone to the public when the phone is in the custody of the ministry”. By Saud Al-Farhan Al-Seyassah Staff

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