Kuwait: Psychiatrist jailed for 5 years over drugs to inmates

Cairo: The appeals court in Kuwait has sentenced a psychiatrist to five years on charges of smuggling drugs to prisoners, a Kuwaiti newspaper has reported.

The man had been earlier caught while illegally taking drugs into Kuwait’s Central Prison for inmates there, Al Qabas added.

The specialist was supposed to treat drug addicts and counsel them about the harm caused by narcotics, according to the report.

Investigations revealed that the defendant used to enter the prison to do his job in treating drug addicts among the inmates.

There was no word when the case surfaced.

But in February, the criminal court in Kuwait handed down a psychiatrist a seven-year jail term after he had been caught taking drugs into the Central Prison.

At the time, the court also ordered the defendant to pay a fine of KD6,000. He was, however, cleared of bribery charges due to lack of evidence.

It is not clear if the defendant was the same convicted by the appeals court this week.

In June of last year, a military guard at Kuwait’s Central Prison had been apprehended on suspicion of smuggling drugs and mobile phones to inmates.

The suspect was allegedly involved in smuggling the banned items to prisoners in return for large sums of money, Al Anba newspaper said, citing a security source.

“The man took advantage of his job in escorting sick inmates at the Central Prison to and from hospitals in smuggling drugs and mobile phones and exploiting his military capacity to personally bring in these prohibited items,” the source said at the time. Some inmates, caught with the stuff, admitted to the involvement of the guard who stayed away from the workplace after learning that his misconduct had been unmasked, the source added.