Former Kuwaiti minister gets four years in jail over corruption

Cairo: A former Kuwaiti government minister has been sentenced to four years in prison and fined KD400,000 ($1.3 million) on corruption charges, according to local media.

A court, tasked with hearing cases involving government officials, ruled that the ex-minister be barred from holding any public post.

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Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas identified the ex-official as Mubarak Al Harees, who once served as minister of services affairs and parliamentary affairs.

Al Harees, 60, was charged with influence peddling when he was a minister by obtaining a decision to change the activity at two plots of industrial land from a craft activity to a commercial service in return for KD50,000.

Al Harees, also an ex-lawmaker, sold the two plots for KD780,000, resulting in a benefit for him and for a company involved in the case by raising the land price due to the change in activity, the report said.

He was also charged with illicit gains and forgery.

In recent years, Kuwait has stepped up anti-corruption efforts and issued varying jail sentences to defendants in high-profile cases.

Last December, Kuwait’s top appeals court sentenced seven expatriates, working at foreign exchange offices, to 10 years in prison each on charges of money laundering.

The court of Cassation also ordered the seven and three forex firms implicated in the case to pay a combined fine of KD60 million as part of the final rulings.

The case was dubbed as the biggest money laundering ring in Kuwait’s forex sector.

In November last year, a Kuwaiti court sentenced an ex-government minister to seven years in prison on charges of profiteering through a business contract, harming public money and influence peddling.

The tribunal, officially known as the Court of Ministers, handed down similar sentences to a former ministerial undersecretary and an ex-head of the Federation of Cooperative Societies in the same case linked to assigning a government tender to a company without following legal procedures to make personal gains.

Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai identified the ex-minister as Mubarak Alarou, who served as minister of social affairs from December 2021 to August 2022.

Last May, Alarou was arrested upon arriving at the Kuwait international airport.