Kuwait strips 2 of citizenship over collaboration with Saddam
Ex-army personnel were convicted of high treason and divulging military intelligence
Cairo: Kuwait has stripped two ex-army personnel of its citizenship for having collaborated with the regime of Saddam Hussein during the Iraqi invasion of the country in the 1990s.
A Kuwaiti decree has been issued withdrawing citizenship from Alaa Hussein, an ex-army officer, and Mohammad Al Juwayad, a one-time army corporal in the National Guard, Kuwaiti media reported.
Hussein had formed a pro-Saddam puppet government in Kuwait following the August 1990 invasion. He is now serving a life imprisonment term in a Kuwaiti prison.
He was convicted of high treason. During his trial, a set of charges were brought against him. They included deliberately committing acts that lead to harming Kuwait’s independence and territorial integrity by heading the so-called Kuwaiti interim government which the Saddam regime announced its formation during its occupation of Kuwait, and announced its acceptance of this occupation and its annexation to Iraq.
Al Juwayad, meanwhile, collaborated with the Saddam regime during incursion into Kuwait and conveyed classified military and security information to the Iraqi intelligence service. He was arrested in 2003 as a member of an espionage ring. He was convicted of spying with a hostile country.
Under a 1959 Kuwaiti law, Kuwaiti citizenship can be revoked if its holder is found guilty of working to the benefit of a foreign country that is at war with Kuwait or had its political relations cut off with it.
Kuwait annually marks February 26 as Liberation Day celebrating the dislodging of Saddam’s troops in 1991 after a US-led military multinational campaign ended the invasion.