In a first, Kuwaiti court jails Bidoon over citizenship forgery
The man was found guilty of forging 1972 ruling to become Kuwaiti citizen
Cairo: A Kuwaiti court has for the first time sentenced a Bidoon (person without document) man to three years in prison on charges of forging a ruling to illegally obtain citizenship, a Kuwaiti newspaper has reported.
The defendant was convicted of forging a 1972 court verdict allegedly obligating the country’s Interior Ministry to issue a citizenship certificate for him as a Kuwaiti.
The man’s unlawful act was exposed after he had requested the Kuwaiti General Department of Nationality and Travel Documents to implement a purportedly final verdict awarded to his deceased father granting him citizenship.
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On verifying the alleged ruling, authorities found out that it was fake, and referred the applicant to a trial at the Criminal Court.
The jailing sentence recently handed down to the man can be appealed.
There are an estimated 85,000 Bidoon in Kuwait.
Foreigners make up some 3.2 million of Kuwait’s overall population of 4.6 million.
A series of forgery cases have recently surfaced in Kuwait with offenders given varying jailing terms.
Last month, two expatriates employed in Kuwait were sentenced to imprisonment in separate cases involving the forgery of official documents for financial gains.
In the first case, an Egyptian employee at the Kuwaiti Ministry of Justice was sentenced to five years in prison by the Appeals Court. The defendant was found guilty of tampering with court rulings and entering incorrect data to illicitly facilitate the release of defendants in exchange for bribes, as reported by Al Qabas newspaper.
In a second case, an expatriate, whose nationality remains undisclosed and was sentenced in absentia, received a 10-year jail term. The conviction was related to falsifying blood sample results from foreign workers with contagious diseases, done in exchange for bribes.
Three other defendants, all employed at the Ministry of Justice, were each sentenced to 10 years in prison in the same case. They were charged with forgery and tampering with blood samples to assist expatriates in obtaining iqamas or residency permits.