Kuwait: Jail sentencing upheld against food official, expat over bribery

Kuwait : A Kuwaiti court has upheld four-year imprisonment sentencing each handed down to a Kuwaiti food inspector and an expatriate for involvement in a bribery case.

The appeals court has also ordered the inspector be dismissed from her job and pay a fine of KD4,000. The expat was convicted of mediating in bribery in return for revoking violation notices at the central market in the Hawlli governorate, south of Kuwait City.

The prime defendant, being a civil servant, was charged with accepting a bribe of KD2,000 in return for destroying the violation notices while the co-defendant was charged with acting as a broker in the bribery crime.

Both defendants were caught in a police ambush while exchanging the notices for the KD2,000 bills after they had been numbered to serve as evidence in the case. In recent years, Kuwait has stepped up a crackdown on white-collar corruption.
Earlier this week, Kuwaiti authorities uncovered attempts led by a civil servant charged with receiving money and using forgery to place expatriates on Kuwaitis’ sponsorship lists without their sponsors’ knowledge.

The scam came to authorities’ attention after a Kuwaiti citizen had filed a legal complaint that he had discovered a foreign worker had been put under his sponsorship without the complainant’s knowledge, a security source said.

In response, police in charge of expatriates’ residency affairs conducted investigations, which concluded that a woman civil servant working at a government service centre stood behind the illegal act.
Late last year, Kuwait’s highest court upheld jail sentences and dismissal of seven former judges on corruption charges in a case that surfaced around three years earlier.

The Court of Cassation affirmed the imprisonment of the former judges for terms ranging from seven to 15 years, dismissed them from their positions, and confiscated cars they had received as bribes in a case linked to an Iranian businessman. The verdicts are final.