Case against Kuwaiti accused of insulting ruler adjourned

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By Jaber Al-Hamoud Al-Seyassah Staff KUWAIT CITY, Jan 20: The Criminal Court has adjourned to March 1 the State Security case filed against a Kuwaiti citizen who was accused of posting offensive comments against His Highness the Amir of Kuwait on Twitter website and was repatriated from Qatar after escaping from Kuwait last year.

According to the case file, three other citizens including two who worked in the immigration department have been accused of helping the main defendant escape from the country using another individual’s identification documents.

These three suspects are currently serving their jail terms. The fugitive had managed to exit the country along with another individual through the Nuwaiseeb border during the last week of March 2015 using the civil ID of the relative of one of the customs officers working at Nuwaiseeb border. Investigations revealed that both the owner of the card and the customs officer were aware of the escape plan and they were both charged with helping a fugitive to escape.

The main defendant went to the city of Dammam in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from where he flew to Dubai. Based on the request of Jordanian security authorities, he was arrested by the Interpol for his involvement in a financial racket in Jordan. Earlier this month, the Criminal Court sentenced three employees who worked at the border checkpoint to ten-year imprisonment with hard labor for helping a fugitive escape from the country. The fugitive was also sentenced in absentia to a similar jail term after an arrest order was issued against him for his involvement in the case popularly known as ‘Fintas Group’.

Citizen acquitted: The Court of Appeals presided over by Judge Najib Al-Mulla nullified the verdict issued by the Court of First Instance which sentenced a Kuwaiti citizen to ten-year imprisonment. The court instead acquitted him. According to the case file, the Public Prosecution accused the defendant of allegedly robbing an individual along with two unknown persons and stabbing and attacking the victim. The latter reported that the suspects robbed him in Mahboula by impersonating security operatives and ordering him to surrender his mobile phone and cash of KD 80. He added that one of the suspects stabbed him and others attacked him physically before they fled in their car. However, the defense counsel Lawyer Talal Saber Al-Enezi faulted the seriousness of the investigation particularly since it was concluded based on circumstantial evidence. He stressed that the prosecution officer had filed over 15 cases against his client but they were later discovered to have been filed against an unknown person. He insisted that those cases were found to lack authenticity because descriptions of suspects were incorrect. Lawyer Al-Enezi also indicated that there were no eyewitnesses to the incident, which supposedly occurred publicly around 4:00 pm.

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