Kuwait: 4 get final jail terms over exam leaks
In June, a high school exam was cancelled and rescheduled after online leak
Cairo: Kuwait’s highest court has handed down varying jail terms to four people on charges of involvement in leaks of the crucial high school examinations, in one of such cases that have recently surfaced in the country.
The Court of Cassation has sentenced two Kuwaiti citizens to two years in jail each and a Kuwaiti and an expatriate to six-month imprisonment each on charges of divulgence of secrets.
The four were acquitted of the money laundering charges.
The court, meanwhile, cleared seven others in the same case which is not clear when it was detected. The rulings are final.
In June, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Education cancelled the Islamic education examination and rescheduled it after its questions and answers circulated on social media.
Ten suspects were subsequently arrested in connection to the leak. The country’s Interior Ministry said at the time the suspects included four employees at the Ministry of Education and six others handling social media accounts.
In recent years, exam leaks were reported in Kuwait and culprits were later penalised in different cases.
Earlier this year, a Kuwaiti court sentenced three defendants including an expatriate to five years in prison each on charges of involvement in a leak of high school exams.
The verdict was handed down to two Kuwaiti citizens convicted of involvement in the exam leak via WhatsApp groups in return for money.
The court issued the same sentence against an Egyptian expatriate, who was tried in absentia in connection to the same case.
In December, a Kuwaiti court issued varying jail terms to four people in a similar case. At the time, the Criminal Court sentenced two Kuwaitis – a man and a woman – to 10 and seven years in prison respectively in the case.
Another Kuwaiti man and an expatriate were each given one year in jail in the same case.