‘Malaysian Fund’ case ruling set for March 28

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KUWAIT CITY, Feb 4: The Criminal Court, presided over by Judge Faisal Al-Harbi, last week decided to issue on March 28 its verdict in the case, famously known as the “Malaysian Fund”, in which one of the sons of the former prime minister and four others, including Bashar Kiwan, are suspects. During the previous session, the main suspect – the son of the former prime minister – and the second and third defendants were present but the fourth suspect Bashar Kiwan, failed to appear because the criminal rulings had been issued against him in absentia, and he, being a foreigner, is yet to step into Kuwait.

During the deliberation of the session, police officer Nasser Al-Tayyar attended with his defense attorney Amer Al-Shahoumi and claimed a civil temporary compensation of KD 5,001 in his capacity as the supervisor of the first investigation team and the director of the Anti- Money Laundering Department, something that can be considered as a precedent with the Kuwaiti judiciary.

The Public Prosecution charged the three defendants with being an organized criminal group that committed the crime of money laundering in Chinese currency equivalent to 343 million yuan (KD 700,000), knowing that this money is the proceeds of crimes related to theft of money and investments of the Malaysian Sovereign Fund.

It indicated that the first defendant had obtained this money through the bank accounts of the company owned by him and his personal accounts in the branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China located in the State of Kuwait, using which he made transfers through a complex network of financial operations between his accounts and a company account in the Cayman Islands, Malaysia.

The first and fourth defendants were charged with committing money laundering with an amount equivalent to KD 21 million, knowing that these funds were obtained from theft crimes related to the investments of the Malaysian sovereign fund.

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