Saudi poet sentenced to life in Kuwait for citizenship fraud and embezzlement

Dubai: A prominent Saudi poet has been sentenced to life in prison by Kuwait’s Criminal Court for forging Kuwaiti citizenship and embezzling public funds, in one of the country’s most high-profile fraud cases in recent memory.

Presiding judge Abdulwahab Al Muaili also imposed a fine of KD1.79 million (approximately USD 5.8 million) on the defendant and ordered full restitution of the illicit funds. The court concluded that the poet had systematically manipulated official records for decades to illegally obtain Kuwaiti nationality and its accompanying privileges.

According to court documents, the defendant acquired Kuwaiti citizenship in 1995 by fraudulently adding himself to the civil file of a deceased citizen.

He allegedly renounced his Saudi nationality, assumed a false identity, and secured a forged birth certificate dated 1972  despite having been born in 1961.

The fallout from the case extended beyond the individual: the court also ruled to revoke the Kuwaiti nationality of the poet’s 27 children, both sons and daughters, since their citizenship was derived from the fraudulent application.

Prosecutors revealed that the defendant left Kuwait in 2016, but it wasn’t until June 2024 that his Kuwaiti nationality was formally revoked following a lengthy investigation by national authorities