On August 16, a Kuwaiti Criminal Court sentenced a sheikh from the ruling family and a senior Interior Ministry officer to prison for embezzlement of public funds. In this case, the criminal investigation lasted 585 days.
The court sentenced Brigadier General Adel Al-Hashash to 30 years in prison for embezzlement of public funds, known in the media as “Interior Ministry hospitality,” according to Al-Arab newspaper.
The court also sentenced Sheikh Ahmed al-Khalifa to two years imprisonment and suspended the release on bail of 5,000 dinars ($ 16,300) after his detention for negligence in the same case.
The court ordered Al-Hashash and other defendants to return 120 million dinars ($392 million), as well as to confiscate his money and remove him from office.
Besides, the court ruled that the defendants Walid al-Sanea and Abdullah Al-Hammadi would be sentenced to 17 years imprisonment on charges of assisting in the theft of funds by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Internal Affairs and money laundering.
The court also sentenced Hamad al-Tuwayjri, Abdullah al-Mishari and Ayman Salam to 15 years’ imprisonment for their involvement in a corruption case.
In addition, court ordered the 10 years imprisonment of Iqbal al-Khalfan, Mohammed al-Kazemi, Ghosoun al-Khaled, Ali Mounir Haddad, Abdullah Harouni, and Mohammed Kamal Ballout.
In 2016, Hashash was director of the Public Relations Department and the official spokesman of the Ministry of Interior. He misused his position to embezzle funds of the ministry, under the pretext of spending on conferences and hospitality security delegations.
In recent years, corruption scandals in Kuwait related to theft of large sums of public funds have become a frequent occurrence. The involvement of sheikhs from the ruling family and high-ranking officials in these cases served as a green traffic light for corruption that permeates the roots of the state.
A few weeks ago, the Kuwaiti judiciary took up a case known to the media as the Malaysian Foundation. In this case, the son of the former Prime Minister of Kuwait Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah and his partner, businessman Hamad Al-Wazzan are accused.
However, the investigation has not yet been completed in another criminal case involving the sale of housing, in which Sheikh Mazen Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Kuwait, is accused.
