Kuwait: 3 Gulf nationals get 10-year jail terms over citizenship fraud
Trio ordered to pay back 1 million dinars to public treasury
Cairo: A Kuwaiti court has sentenced three Gulf nationals to 10 years in prison each on charges of forging Kuwaiti citizenship and illegally obtaining KD500,000 (Dh5.97 million) in government salaries and perks.
The criminal court also ordered the defendants to return KD1 million to the state treasury, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas reported. The fine is double the amount of the government pay they got while holding Kuwaiti citizenship after unlawfully claiming to be children of Kuwaiti men.
Kuwait, a country of around 4.9 million people mostly expatriates, has recently launched a clampdown on citizenship fraud and duality to protect national identity.
Authorities have withdrawn citizenship from hundreds of people since early March due to fraud or holding another nationality that is banned under Kuwaiti law.
Hotline
Earlier this week, a Kuwaiti state committee, responsible for verifying eligibility to hold the country's citizenship, announced withdrawing citizenship from a record group of 930 individuals.
The latest figure rose to 1,617 the total number of the people against whom such decisions were made to strip them of Kuwaiti citizenship in just 20 days.
The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry has set up a hotline to receive reports about holders of dual citizenship or those who obtained it through forgery.
The ministry has urged members of the public with related information to report it via the hotline for investigations, promising the whistleblowers full secrecy.
In recent weeks, Kuwaiti media reported about several uncovered cases of foreigners, who obtained Kuwaiti citizenship through falsehood and forgery.
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