KUWAIT CITY, Dec 17: The Second Circuit of the Court of Appeals, presided over by Judge Nasr Salem Al-Haid and including Judges Mutaib Al-Aradhi and Saud Al-Sanea, upheld the Criminal Court’s ruling to sentence four Iranian nationals to death for smuggling drugs. The defendants were convicted of smuggling 322 kilograms of hashish with the intent to traffic it, in a major maritime smuggling operation foiled by the Drug Control General Department (DCGD) in cooperation with the Coast Guard. According to the case file, DCGD received confidential information about a large-scale smuggling operation planned within Kuwaiti territorial waters. Based on this information, the Coast Guard’s radar detected a dhow arriving from Iran and a speedboat designated to receive the shipment within Kuwaiti territorial waters. The suspects were arrested during the handover, and eight bags containing a total of 322 kilograms of hashish were seized.

The Public Prosecution charged the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth defendants with importing narcotics with intent to traffic. The fifth defendant was charged with importing and possessing hashish with intent to traffic, in addition to possessing psychotropic substances for personal use. The seventh defendant, an inmate at the Central Prison, was accused of sending the coordinates of the delivery location. Earlier, the Criminal Court had sentenced four Iranian nationals to death, and sentenced a Kuwaiti citizen to five-year imprisonment and a KD 5,000 fine for drug use but acquitted him of the importation charge.

An Egyptian expatriate and the inmate at the Central Prison were acquitted. However, the Court of Appeals upheld the death sentences for the Iranian nationals, confirmed the acquittal of the Egyptian expatriate and the inmate, and overturned the prison sentence for the Kuwaiti citizen and instead acquitted him of the drug use charge along with the importation charge. In a separate case, the Court of Appeals upheld the verdict of the Criminal Court to refrain from punishing defendants involved in the embezzlement of public funds at the Ministry of Education after they repaid the misappropriated amounts.

The court imposed a KD 200 bail, had them sign a pledge of good conduct for one year, and rejected the Public Prosecution’s appeal. The case was filed against senior officials and employees of the Ministry of Education for facilitating the misappropriation of salaries that were improperly disbursed during periods when some female employees were absent from the country. This was done by manipulating electronic attendance and departure records. The amounts involved in the alleged misappropriation exceeded KD 3,000 in several instances before being fully repaid.

In another case, the Court of Appeals rejected a request to suspend the execution of the Criminal Court’s ruling issued against two expatriates who were sentenced to life imprisonment and fined KD 3,131,000, for embezzling more than KD 1,043,000 from a company, in which the state has a stake, by manipulating invoices from other companies. The court reserved its final judgment in the case for the session scheduled on December 19.

By Jaber Al-Hamoud Al-Seyassah/Arab Times Staff