Long-term jail, heavy fine for senior MoI officials in co-op funds scandal
Two Egyptians, Kuwaiti indicted in fake degrees case
KUWAIT CITY, Dec 16: The Criminal Court, presided over by Judge Mit’ab Al-‘Aridhi, sentenced a colonel in the Ministry of Interior to 15 years in prison with hard labor, 10 years for two others and seven years for two more, in addition to fining them KD1.68 million for embezzling money belonging to the Police Cooperative Society.
The judge also ruled on the colonel’s dishonorable dismissal from the police force, while the expatriates will be deported after serving jail time. They were also instructed to return the misappropriated funds.
The Public Prosecution charged five of the suspects – in their capacity as public servants who occupied the following positions: general manager, cashier, Accounts Department head, accountant and data entry operator – of embezzling KD 1,068,630,000 by forging receipts and documents which showed that the cooperative society owed one of the suspects the aforementioned amount. They also conspired to enter false receipts in the accounts book and laundered the money they embezzled.
Fake certificates: The Criminal Court issued its second verdict on cases concerning fake academic certificates involving two Egyptian employees of the Ministry of Higher Education and a Kuwaiti who forged a university degree to secure a job as Legal Researcher in the Ministry of Interior.
The court refrained from issuing punishment against the defendants and ordered them to maintain good conduct for a period of two years and with financial guarantee of KD 300 each.
The case files indicated one of the Egyptians admitted to forging many university certificates credited to universities in Egypt for KD 500 per certificate, with the help of his compatriot involved in several cases, who fled the country.
It is worth mentioning the criminal court had issued its first ruling about a week ago in which two Egyptian were sentenced to five years in prison with hard labor, alongside a citizen who presented a fake certificate to be employed as a prosecutor.
Citizen acquitted: The Court of Appeals overturned the verdict of the First Instance Court, which sentenced a citizen to three years in jail with hard labor and fined him KD 3,000 for possession of Ecstasy pills with the intention to consume the pills. The higher court then acquitted the citizen.
Case files indicate the citizen was charged with possessing Ecstasy pills with the intention to consume the pills. The arresting officer told the court he spotted the citizen asleep in his car, prompting him to wake up the citizen. The officer then realized the citizen was disoriented and did not have identification documents. The officer searched the citizen and his car where the Ecstasy pills were discovered.
Lawyer for the citizen, Attorney Jassem Al-Tuweitan, argued that his client was arrested and searched illegally as the arresting officer had no permission from the Public Prosecution to do so, let alone waking up his client.
In its ruling, the court affirmed it does not warrant the arrest and search of a person if a police officer sees the latter asleep in his car and disoriented.