Kuwait has been rocked by a high-stakes judicial scandal involving the bribery of judges, lawyers, court clerks, banks, financial institutions, and government officials, a case that has sent shockwaves through the nation.
The Court of Cassation, which represents the last level of litigation in Kuwait, closed the file of the ongoing case of bribery of judges, lawyers, court clerks, banks, financial institutions and government officials. Which has caused an uproar in the country due to its seriousness due to its attachment to the prestige of the exceptionally sensitive judicial facility, as well as indications of the complexity and complexity of corruption paths in the country, Kuwait offers immunity to Judges and court advocates which makes it hard to trial A law prohibiting disputes with judges and a law that prevents disputes with judges and makes suing the judiciary nearly impossible.
The Final verdict was issued on 19th October
On Thursday 19th of October 2023, the court issued a final verdict in the case, sentencing 7 judges to 7 years in prison each as a part of a correction movement. The court upheld the acquittal of one judge and imprisoned two businessmen for 12 years each with work and enforcement and imposed financial fines, in addition to imprisoning a lawyer for 10 years and a head of court clerk department for seven years with work and enforcement, refraining from punishing a lawyer and three employees working in the court and upholding the innocence of a former court official.
The court has also referenced the assistance of Bank employees assisting in money laundering and bribery.
The appeals court issued its verdict in October last year to jail and dismiss seven Judges and oblige them to return expensive cars, jewelry and gifts they received from an Iranian defendant in a money laundering and corruption case.
The facts of the case date back to 2020, when the Public Prosecution discovered during its investigations in a previous case, related to the Iranian resident in Kuwait, Fouad Salehi, a money laundering case and the existence of communication with ten judges, as it referred two Judges to discipline, while it referred eight judges to the Criminal Court, and referred three lawyers, Salehi and 15 other people to trial.
The multiplicity of corruption cases in Kuwait, their complexity and their taking on an organized cross-border character raised the alert of the new empowered authorities determined to eradicate the phenomenon. The referral of the eight judges came after their immunity was lifted, after those Judges and clerks have helped multi million dollars of litigation to vanish and not be executed or enforced in courts in Kuwait.
Those Judges, lawyers, and court clerks who have been employed secretly by influential business man, financial institutions and banks, are required to frustrate and hinder the final rulings from the courts or arbitration panels locally or internationally “especially international or foreign companies” companies such German Mercedes-Benz “former name Daimler AG” US based Caterpillar Inc and major international franchise companies in different field were stopped from enforcing there court judgments against sovereign or semi sovereign entities. Seven Judges issuing the ruling and disrupting implementation under the pretext of forgery. These judges, who are part of the corrupt deep state network in Kuwait, are likened to an organized criminal network where they base their price on the reward.
More than 3000 files seized
Over 3000 files have been confiscated from banks such National Bank of Kuwait, Ahli United Bank, Gulf Bank, Kuwait Finance House, as evidence of banks involvement or involvement of bank officials is certain. The Buneider network “Buneider which is an area for luxury beach houses” has a history of specializing in money laundering and included a number of Kuwaiti employees and officials of various ranks, including officers of law and security and police services. The role of the convicted judges and administrators in the second case was to manipulate the files of the first case and assign it manually to hearings before pre-agreed Judges. Judges that have been paid a bribe in order to hinder justice and manipulate the judgments under an official framework.
The effect of such corruption not only affected commercial and financial disputes, but it endangered and affected people’s freedom. Ministry of Justice officials expect over 1,800 cases between civil and criminal got contaminated by this bribery and corrupt judges that should get compensated or at least given a chance for pardon or judicial review, a committee is due to be formed to start reviewing the cases that were trialed by those Judges that got sentenced.
The case is the fourth major corruption and money laundering case that has been raised in Kuwait in recent years, along with the $4B Malaysian Fund 1MDB fund case and the Bangladeshi MP case, along with Army Fund and Ahli United Bank and the case of the Kuwait Investment Authority office in London, which the Kuwaiti judiciary began considering a few weeks ago.
Kuwait’s Finance Ministry said earlier this week that Minister Fahd al-Jarallah had referred the London office of the Kuwait Investment Authority, which manages the sovereign wealth fund, to prosecutors for abuses, the 1953 first and most prestigious sovereign wealth fund is a victim of corruption. It is noted that more than 50% of the 1MBD scandal got routed through Kuwait’s financial system. The repetition of such trials in recent years reflects the rigor and determination of the Emir and his Crown Prince to eradicate the phenomenon and hold all officials accountable, the delicacy of the situation in such a scandal especially involving banks required a political and gentle management as people lost faith in the Judicial System. The ministry said in a statement that the move came after an internal investigation committee completed its first report on the observations and abuses that were monitored during the period from 2016 to 2022. The statement noted that the remarks included “the disclosure of confidential information and the destruction of information belonging to the Courts, General Investment Authority, Bank information in addition to many other violations and crimes that makes the sovereign budget at stake in compensating those affected as a result of the failure of the judicial and regulatory apparatus.
The multiplicity of cases has aroused a state of alert among the Kuwaiti authorities, given the seriousness of the phenomenon of corruption and its dangerous degree of incursion and rampant within State agencies and among officials occupying sensitive positions. Those issues have two common denominators that make them exceptionally serious. The first is its cross-border character through the involvement of foreigners, while the second is the complicity of Kuwaiti officials, some of them high-level, in various cases.
In the Malaysian Fund case known as 1MDB fund the money-laundering operation extended from Kuwaiti Banks Such Gulf Bank, Ahli United Bank, Kuwait Finance House and Chinese based bank ICBC and back to Malaysia, the home of one of the main defendants, to the Comoros, where a Ahli Bank was used as an Islamic financial container for the operation.
Highest profile defendant is son of former Kuwaiti prime minister
The most prominent defendant in the case was none other than the son of former Kuwaiti Prime Minister who was also tried in a separate corruption case and his acquittal is expected and awaited. The multiplicity of cases has raised a state of alert among the Kuwaiti authorities given the seriousness of the phenomenon of corruption and its reaching a dangerous degree of incursion and rampant within state agencies. The case of the Bangladeshi MP was a human trafficking network led by a member of the Bangladesh parliament that was active in bringing expatriates to Kuwait and granting them residency in the country illegally, more than $180M was the dividends of his business. Among those most prominent in addition to the Bangladeshi MP are two former Kuwaiti government officials, a former member of the Kuwaiti parliament and a former candidate for the parliamentary elections.
This was not the first time that a Kuwaiti “sheikh” royalty was named in a financial corruption case, as the former Prime Minister and Speaker of the House had previously been prosecuted in the case of wasting funds of a fund dedicated to the armed forces through Kuwaiti Banks registered in U.S and U.K. Observers of Kuwaiti affairs believe that the recurrence of such trials in recent years reflects not only the bifurcation of corruption and its leakage into relatively advanced circles in the pyramid of power, but also reflects the rigor and determination of the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad and his Crown Prince Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad to eradicate the phenomenon and hold all those responsible accountable, regardless of their affiliation and responsibilities in the state. Despite what Kuwait has earned over decades from oil revenues, which it relies on mainly as a source of income, this did not prevent it from facing successive financial crises that reached the point of paying over the past few years in a shocking and unexpected scenario represented in the inability to pay the salaries of workers and employees.
Despite the validity of the direct factors that led to these crises in Kuwait, most political and economic analysts attribute their real causes to accumulated mistakes, waste and misappropriation of resources that continued for a long period of time and deprived the country of investing huge sums of money that came from oil revenues in the years of abundance.