Kuwait: Expat Jailed For 7 Years Over Air Ticket Embezzlement
A Kuwaiti court has sentenced an expatriate airline employee to seven years in prison on charges of embezzlement, in one of the latest corruption cases uncovered in the country.
The Criminal Court also ordered the defendant, a ticket sales officer at the national carrier, Kuwait Airways, to pay a fine of KD56,000 (around $182,600) and be dismissed from his job for having pocketed 18,000 dinars in ticket change fees over a five-year period. The defendant's nationality was not disclosed.
The case surfaced after the airline had filed a legal complaint against the man whose nationality was not revealed, according to media reports.
In recent years, Kuwait has stepped up anti-corruption efforts and issued varying jail sentences to defendants in high-profile cases.
Last week, Kuwait's top appeals court sentenced an ex-government minister to two years in prison on corruption charges in a final ruling.
The Court of Cassation also ordered ex-minister Mubarak Al Harees to pay a fine of KD566,000 in the same case and barred him from holding any public office on charges of power abuse and making illicit gains.
Last October, a Kuwaiti court, tasked with hearing cases involving government officials, sentenced Al Harees to four years in prison, fined him KD400,000 and ruled he be barred from holding any public post. He appealed against the ruling.
Al Harees once served as minister of services affairs and parliamentary affairs.
Al Harees, now 61, was charged with influence peddling when he was a minister by obtaining a decision from authorities to change the designation of two plots of industrial land from a craft activity to a commercial service in return for KD50,000.
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