KUWAIT CITY, June 18: The Second Criminal Circuit of the Court of Cassation has issued a final ruling in the cases known in the media as the “Ministry of Defense Expenses” and “Ministry of Interior Expenses”, and sentenced former Minister of Defense and Interior Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled to three years' imprisonment with hard labor, reports Al-Seyassah daily.
Given that the sentences are to run concurrently, the applicable sentence is three years' imprisonment. The court also sentenced the second defendant to three years' imprisonment with hard labor and ordered his deportation from Kuwait after serving his sentence.
It affirmed the facts in the Ministry of Defense case based on evidence, testimonies, investigations, and expenditure receipts. The court explained that Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled, in his capacity as Minister of Defense, issued orders to disburse KD589,500 from the special expenses budget and deliver it to the second defendant, despite the latter not holding any official position authorizing him to receive such funds. The amount was delivered through 32 documented disbursement transactions and then deposited into the second defendant’s bank account through hundreds of separate deposits, which the court considered intended to conceal the source of the funds and disguise their true nature.
A total of 277 ATM deposits and 118 cash deposits were made before the funds were transferred to members of the first defendant’s family and others. The court affirmed that public funds allocated for special expenses must be spent for legally defined purposes and may not be given to anyone with no official or professional relationship to the ministry.
It rejected the defense’s claims that the deposited funds originated from investments and real estate owned by Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled, stating that the defendants failed to provide any evidence to support this. The court indicated that it based its decision on Article 20, Paragraph 2 of the Public Funds Protection Law, which allows for a reduction in punishment if the damage is minor. It noted that Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled returned the full amount of KD 589,000 before the verdict, as shown by an official receipt dated June 4, 2026. As a result, the court limited the sentence to three years' imprisonment and annulled the original penalties related to dismissal from office and proportional fines.
Regarding the case of the Ministry of Interior’s secret expenditures, the court rejected the findings of the investigation committee concerning the alleged embezzlement of KD 9,572,339, stating that the evidence did not meet the level of conclusive proof required for conviction. It explained that the nature of secret expenditures and the associated security and sovereignty considerations exempt the minister from disclosing details of how the funds were spent. The relevant laws prohibit the disclosure of classified operations related to national security.
Despite dismissing the embezzlement charge, the court convicted Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled of facilitating the misappropriation of public funds by issuing an order to disburse KD 20,000 from secret expenditure funds to a newspaper owner without justification. The court considered this a separate offense.
The court also convicted Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled of submitting two incomplete financial disclosure statements, both during his tenure as minister and after leaving office, for failing to disclose several vehicles he owned. It fined Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled KD 3,000 for this charge. It acquitted Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled of charges of illicit enrichment and money laundering, confirming that the case file lacked conclusive evidence of an unjustified increase in his wealth or that the funds in question were proceeds of crime.
The court emphasized that criminal judgments must be based on certainty and conviction, not on conjecture and probability. It noted that the evidence in the Ministry of Defense case reached the level of judicial certainty, while the evidence presented in the Ministry of Interior case did not reach the same level, requiring acquittal on some charges and modification of the legal characterization of others.
