Kuwaiti MP praises crackdown on forged citizenship papers and urges more action

A Kuwaiti court sentenced a Saudi man and six Syrians to jail for counterfeiting citizenship and abusing the state’s social services.

The Saudi man was sentenced to seven years in jail and the Syrians to four years followed by immediate deportation, according to Kuwait Criminal Court.

The Saudi worked in the ministry of defence and posed as a Kuwaiti citizen. He was found guilty of embezzling 24,000 Kuwaiti dinars (Dh292,000). He was also fined double that amount.

A Syrian man faked Kuwaiti papers that he used to gain citizenship for his five sons under Kuwait’s national inheritance law.

Safa Al Hashem, a Kuwaiti MP, said the case was the first of many and that 300,000 of 1.3 million Kuwaitis hold counterfeit citizenship documents.

“You’ll find 300,000 people have counterfeit citizenship, and that makes the number of citizens around 1 million,” she said, according to news organisation Al Rai.

The MP suspected bribery of government employees was the most common method of obtaining forged documents.

“In the past, everyone disregarded me for making false accusations. Today, we all saw that since Sheikh Mazen Al Jarrah began handling the cases that counterfeiters are being caught like rats,” Ms Al Hashem told Al Rai.

She urged Sheikh Mazen, an official in the ministry of interior, to continue his crackdown on counterfeiters.

Kuwaitis benefit from many programmes, including government stipends, land grants and health care.

Safa Al Hashem claimed she was vindicated by trial and that 300,000 people had fake papers