Citizens of seven countries who are serving sentences in Kuwait prisons could soon be repatriated to their home countries to serve the remaining term of their sentence in prisons there.
The Ministry of Interior, working in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is reported to have contacted the concerned authorities in the seven countries and requested them to facilitate the transfer of their citizens who are in Kuwait prisons to jails in their respective states.
The seven countries being contacted are Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Iraq is said to have been the first to respond and has already accepted 13 prisoners. Iran has followed suit and taken in 130 prisoners in three batches over the last few days, within the framework of the bilateral exchange of prisoners agreement signed between the two countries. However, those serving time in state-security cases are not covered by the extradition pact.
Several reasons have been given for the extradition of prisoners. In the first place, these seven countries account for the majority of prisoners in Kuwait jails and the Central Prison is said to be filled to capacity.
Repatriating the prisoners could also be a cost-cutting measure. Most of the prisoners had been jailed for minor crimes and some had reached advanced ages, and had become a burden on the country in terms of the cost of imprisonment and the provision of health care. The prisoner exchange offer also comes within the framework of Kuwait’s role in humanitarian work.
It needs to be added that there are specific conditions that must be agreed upon in the process of handing over prisoners, the most prominent of which is the agreement from the prisoner to complete the remainder of his sentence in his home country, in addition to the approval of his country to receive him or her.
Meanwhile, some countries have not responded to the prisoner extradition, and others have conveyed they are not interested in receiving the prisoners as it could lead to protracted cases in local courts.