Doctor in Kuwait was fined for stealing KD3.5 drug from the hospital
KUWAIT CITY, June 16: The Criminal and Cassation courts issued a series of deterrent rulings in cases related to the embezzlement of public funds, professional negligence, and crimes against professional honor. In the first case, the Criminal Court sentenced a government employee to five years in prison, ordered permanent removal from his job, and fined him KD35,000 for embezzling more than KD11,000 as undeserved salaries while he was in pretrial detention in a drug case.
The penalty also extended to his direct supervisor, as the court ruled to dismiss him from his position and fined him KD3,000 for neglecting his duties and failing to inform the competent authorities about the employee's absence from work. In a similarly stringent ruling, the Court of Cassation -- headed by Counselor Sultan Bouresli -- upheld a previous ruling fining a psychiatric assistant doctor KD500 after he admitted to stealing antidepressant medication worth KD3.5 from Amiri Hospital. Investigations revealed that the doctor wore a mask to conceal his features while committing the crime, which he repeated several times to obtain medications not normally dispensed to non-psychiatric patients. During the investigations, the doctor explained that he had suffered from anxiety and depression for years and paid the price for the stolen medications.
Moreover, the Lawyers Disciplinary Chamber at the Court of First Instance issued disciplinary rulings against several lawyers for professional negligence. One lawyer was suspended for one year, another for three months, and a third for one month for missing crucial appeals in their clients' cases. A fourth lawyer was suspended for eight months for failing to attend with his client during the investigation into a complaint related to a bounced check and a seizure. In a separate case, also headed by Bouresli, the Court of Cassation upheld a three-year prison sentence imposed on a citizen after it was proven that he attempted to leave illegally through the Salmi border using a Saudi identification card despite a travel ban imposed on him. These rulings confirm the Kuwaiti judiciary's strict oversight of public funds, its commitment to professional duties and ethics, and keenness to implement the principle of accountability and to prevent impunity.
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