Exactly after 1,633 days before the courts, the Court of Cassation closed the curtain on the case known as ‘Interior Ministry Hospitality’ and upheld various sentences of “imprisonment and fines against a number of defendants.”
The court increased the sentence against the first accused, Adel Al-Hashash, and sentenced him to life imprisonment instead of 15 years, and fined him 113 million dinars.
It also ruled to uphold two years’ imprisonment with suspended enforcement of other defendants, Iqbal Al-Khalfan, Ahmed Al-Khalifa, and Walid Al-Sanea, and fined each of them 20,000 dinars.
The court also sentenced Maher and Abeer Marafi to two years in prison, with a two-year suspended sentence, and Abdullah Al Hammadi to 15 years in prison.
The details of the interior hospitality issue go back to 2016, when the Budget Committee in the National Assembly opened the file for the hospitality item in the Ministry of the Interior, only to reveal to it during the inventory, which was conducted by the General Administration of Logistics and Supply at the time, that money from the budget was spent as bills for fuel, meals, hotel reservations and purchase of flower bouquets and gifts, all of which were forged.
The Public Prosecution had charged the defendants in the case and accused them of violating the sanctity of public money, because most names in whose names money was spent were what sources called ‘imaginary’ guests who did not visit Kuwait.
The Court of Cassation headed by Chancellor Sultan Bourisli closed the appropriation case.
Public money and the infringement of the state’s capabilities, known as the “Hospitality of the Interior”, and it upheld prison sentences and fines against a number of defendants.
The court intensified the sentence against the first accused, Adel Al-Hashash, and sentenced him to life imprisonment instead of 15 years, fining him 113 million dinars, and dismissed him from his job.
The court upheld the sentence of two years imprisonment with hard labor against Iqbal Al-Khalfan, Ahmed Al-Khalifa, and Walid Al-Sanea, and a fine of 20,000 dinars each, and it ruled that Muhammad Al-Kazemi and Ghosoun Al-Khaled be punished with 7 years imprisonment with hard work; Maher Al-Baghli and Abeer Marafi with two years imprisonment each, with a stay of execution of the penalty for a period of 3 years – starting from the date of the verdict – provided that they submit a pledge of good conduct and behavior, accompanied by a bail of 5 thousand dinars.
The Court of Cassation ruled that Abdullah Al-Hammadi be imprisoned for 15 years with hard labour, obligated him to return 7.5 million dinars and fined him twice the amount.
The court decided to deport the sixth defendant, Nour al-Katatni, the tenth, Ahmed Muhammad, the eighteenth, Ali Haddad, the nineteenth, Abdullah Harouni, the twenty-first, Osama Mawli, and the twenty-fourth, Radwan Youssef, from the country after executing the sentence.