Manama: A request by Kuwaiti lawmakers to hold an emergency parliamentary session to debate an alleged illegal multimillion-dinar deposit into the accounts of MPs has been withdrawn after it failed to get the required number of signatures, MP Falah Al Sawwagh said.

The request was submitted last week by the Reform and Development Bloc, of which Al Sawwagh is a member, but received the endorsement of only 30 MPs, three members short of the required quorum, Kuwait Times daily reported on Wednesday.

He said that the Reform Bloc has withdrawn the emergency session request, adding that all developments related to the issue will now be moved to the next parliamentary session which opens on October 25.

Money laundering

Al Sawwagh said that opposition MPs would move to hold a special session to debate the corruption-related allegations and money laundering suspicions.

Kuwait was last month rocked by a news report claiming that the banking accounts of two MPs were "inflated" with huge amounts of money that could be linked to political deals.

However, the daily refrained from publishing the lawmakers' names and preferred to wait for legal and political developments.

The decision to cancel the special parliament session was made as local electronic media published the names of MPs said to be involved in the illegal deposits which have been linked to political events in the country, especially the quizzing of ministers.

Citing unnamed sources, Sabr electronic newspaper published the names of four MPs whose accounts had been referred to the public prosecution by Kuwait Finance House, the leading Islamic bank in Kuwait.

Amounts 'illegally transferred'

The newspaper also published the amounts it claimed were illegally transferred into their accounts and which ranged between KD 4 million to one million dinars.

However, Hussain Al Huraiti, one of the four MPs named by the online paper vehemently denied the allegation and called on the media not to get involved in the issue before final verdicts are issued by local courts.

Islamist MP Khaled Al Sultan, whose name was not mentioned, called on the media not to publish the names of suspected MPs before the information is proved and validated.

Al Sultan was defending his fellow Salafist MP Ali Al Omair, whose name was mentioned among those referred to the public prosecution by the National Bank of Kuwait. He said he did not believe that Omair had an account with NBK "because it is not an Islamic bank."