60-year citizenship mystery unravels: Gulf identity surfaces before Kuwaiti citizenship

KUWAIT CITY, Aug 13: What began nearly six decades ago as a citizenship application based on family ties has now unraveled into a sprawling nationality investigation involving four alleged brothers, a Gulf identity that existed years before Kuwaiti citizenship was granted, disputed names, inactive files and 105 dependents.

The case centers on (M), born in 1939, who obtained Kuwaiti citizenship in 1965 under Article 1 based on witness testimony that his father had been present in Kuwait before 1920. Two years later, in 1967, he sought citizenship for three men — (S), (A) and (B) — claiming they were his brothers. Their citizenship was granted the same year, also based on witness testimony.

Nearly 60 years later, the Nationality Investigations Department reopened the files of people who had not completed biometric fingerprinting. That review immediately raised questions about (M): although state records showed him as still alive, he had never completed biometric verification, had no passport and showed no travel activity in official records since at least the 1990 Iraqi invasion.

Investigators then looked at the three men whose citizenship had been tied to him — and the trail became even stranger.

The file of (S) contained no entry or exit records, no identity cards and no registered children. (A)'s file showed no activity since the 1990 invasion. The records raised questions about whether the alleged brothers had any verifiable presence beyond their citizenship files.

Then investigators reached (B), whose file was very different. His records were active; he held official identification documents, had recorded movements in and out of Kuwait and had 22 sons registered under his name, along with subsequent dependents.

But a review of his national archive uncovered the first major crack in the story.

In 1975, eight years after receiving Kuwaiti citizenship, (B) sought to register his first child. Among the documents he submitted was a Gulf marriage certificate — and the name on that certificate was not his Kuwaiti name. It was a completely different name, the same name later found in his Gulf citizenship records.

When questioned at the time, he reportedly dismissed the discrepancy as a “material error”, claiming the handwritten marriage document had been written incorrectly. A new Kuwaiti marriage contract bearing his Kuwaiti name was subsequently used to complete the registration of his children.

Decades later, however, that explanation came back to haunt the case.

In 2006, (B) applied to the Nationality Department to renounce his Gulf documents. Investigators discovered that the Gulf identity he had sought to surrender carried the very name he had previously described as a clerical mistake.

The most significant revelation was yet to come: records showed that (B) had obtained his Gulf identity card in 1959 — eight years before he obtained Kuwaiti citizenship in 1967.

The finding transformed the investigation. Authorities concluded that he had held Gulf nationality under his real name before obtaining Kuwaiti citizenship, while the earlier discrepancy in his documents had been presented as a mere error.

The Supreme Committee for Citizenship Investigation was presented with five key findings: citizenship had been obtained through a brother in circumstances deemed impermissible; his Gulf nationality had been concealed; the alleged brothers' files lacked evidence of actual activity; his Gulf citizenship predated his Kuwaiti citizenship; and some of his children had left Kuwait for the Gulf country linked to the earlier identity.

The scale of the case became even more striking when investigators examined (B)'s family file. A total of 105 people were registered under it, and around 80 reportedly left Kuwait after learning that the nationality issue had been exposed.

Based on the investigation, the Supreme Committee decided to withdraw Kuwaiti citizenship from (M), (S) and (A), citing the absence of biometric records and evidence of their actual presence in Kuwait. Citizenship was also withdrawn from (B) and all 105 dependents registered under his file.

What appeared decades ago to be a simple family-based citizenship case ultimately became a trail of conflicting identities, unexplained records and a Gulf nationality that, according to the investigation, existed years before Kuwaiti citizenship was obtained