KUWAIT CITY, Oct 23: The Court of Appeals revoked the imprisonment of the members of a network involved in trafficking residency permits for Sudanese to work as nurses in the country. It also fined a citizen KD10,000 and his son KD3,000, and KD3,000 and KD5,000 for two other defendants. The Public Prosecution charged the citizen who owns a company, his two sons and two expatriates with human trafficking. The defendants were accused of recruiting and receiving the victims named in the investigations through the general trading company owned by the first defendant.

They confiscated their passports through deception and fraud, leading them to believe they would work as nurses in Kuwait. They then received money from the workers in exchange for employment contracts, taking advantage of their need for work and money to use them and restrict their freedom financially. The crime was organized and crossed the border between Sudan and Kuwait.

They were also accused of facilitating foreigners’ access to work permits in exchange for money and of forging official electronic documents by entering fake absence reports into the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM) system. While the Criminal Court previously sentenced some defendants to three years in prison and fined them KD 3,000, the Court of Appeals overturned the prison sentence and imposed the fine, and upheld the acquittal of the remaining defendants. By Jaber Al-Hamoud Al-Seyassah/Arab Times Staff