03/09/2026
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03/09/2026
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KUWAIT CITY, Sept 3: A decades-old identity mystery that began with a child’s death in 1977 has resurfaced in a dramatic nationality investigation after detectives uncovered how a Gulf national allegedly lived for years under the identity of a Kuwaiti child who had died at just 2 years and 4 months old.
The case began when the Nationality Investigation Department received information that a man carrying a Kuwaiti identity was allegedly impersonating a person who had died nearly half a century earlier. Investigators faced a difficult question: how could they prove the child had actually died decades ago when government databases were not yet electronically linked?
The answer lay in dusty records that had survived the passage of time.
The death record that reopened the case
Investigators traced the child’s old death records and found that he had died in 1977 at Chest Hospital at 8 a.m., aged 2 years and 4 months. They then followed the paper trail to the Ministry of Health records and Kuwait Municipality’s Funeral Department, eventually locating the death notice, burial permit and burial details.
The records confirmed that the Kuwaiti child whose name was allegedly being used had indeed died as a young boy.
But solving that mystery only opened another: Who was the man who had been living under the dead child’s name?
Nationality investigators turned to civil registry and Civil ID records, examining the addresses associated with the suspected impersonator. One of the earliest addresses registered under the Kuwaiti identity was also linked to a Gulf national.
That coincidence became a major breakthrough.
Investigators obtained the Gulf national’s photograph and compared his details with information gathered during the probe. They concluded that he was the brother of the man using the Kuwaiti identity.
With a warrant from the Public Prosecution, investigators arrested the suspect and confronted him with the documents, photographs and other evidence collected during the investigation. He reportedly admitted that the information was correct and confessed to impersonating the deceased Kuwaiti child.
The brother who helped unlock the identity
The investigation then widened to the Gulf national who had previously shared a residence with the suspect. Both men underwent DNA testing, which, according to the investigation, established that they were brothers.
Investigators subsequently questioned the brothers of the deceased Kuwaiti child. Their statements allegedly provided the missing link in the extraordinary identity swap.
They said the man they believed to be their late father’s son was actually the son of a Gulf national who had been their father’s neighbor and friend.
According to their account, their father had registered his friend’s son in the family file in place of his own son who had died as a child.
How did a dead child remain ‘alive’ on paper?
The investigation also uncovered what allowed the alleged identity theft to survive for decades.
The child died at a time when Kuwait did not yet have the Civil ID system or the electronic data-sharing links between government agencies that exist today. The administrative process required a hospital death notice, followed by a burial permit and completion of procedures with the Births and Deaths Department to obtain an official death certificate.
In this case, investigators found that the father obtained the death notice and burial permit but apparently never completed the process to obtain the death certificate.
When Civil ID registration was later introduced, family files were compiled using documents submitted by heads of households. Investigators found that the father submitted his deceased son’s birth certificate but did not submit the death certificate.
That gap, combined with the lack of data linkage between government agencies at the time, allegedly created the opening for another child — his Gulf friend’s son — to be registered under the deceased boy’s name.
And so, according to investigators, a child who had died in 1977 effectively remained alive on paper for decades.
A retired National Guard employee with nine children
The alleged impersonator went on to build an entire life under the disputed identity. Investigators found that he had worked in the National Guard until retirement and had nine children listed on his family file.
Authorities referred the suspect to the Public Prosecution for legal action, while the investigation seeks to protect state rights and address benefits and privileges allegedly obtained under the disputed identity.
The case highlights how an identity arrangement created almost 50 years ago, when government records existed largely on paper and systems were not interconnected, could survive across generations — until investigators followed a trail from an old death notice to a burial record, then to an address, a family connection and finally the identity of the man allegedly living under a dead child’s name.
