1 week Ago
Dubai: A Gulf citizen began serving a 10-year prison sentence, only for his legal team to reveal that he was not the intended subject of the conviction. In what legal experts are calling an unusual case, the man appeared before the Court of Cassation, where his lawyers, Hawra Al Habib and Abdul Hamid Mirza, presented an argument that their client had been wrongly convicted due to a procedural error. The defendant, who had consistently maintained his innocence, had been convicted in absentia by both the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeals.
The case had proceeded without him ever being present in court or properly notified of the charges. According to his legal team, the man was not seeking to appeal the sentence because he had not committed any crime. Instead, the defense requested that the court acknowledge their client’s complete lack of involvement in the case, asserting that the real suspect had already been incarcerated.
The court ordered the temporary detention of the defendant while it reviewed the case. Upon investigation, it was revealed that a clerical error had resulted in the wrongful association of the defendant’s civil identification number with the case. The prosecution confirmed this mix-up, leading to the court's decision to release the defendant, thereby restoring his freedom after confirming his innocence.
Meanwhile, in a separate case, the Criminal Court sentenced three Gulf nationals, a father and his two sons, to seven years in prison and imposed a fine of KD 2.5 million. The case involved a scheme in which the family obtained Kuwaiti citizenship through forgery.
They conspired with a Kuwaiti citizen in 1989 to falsify documents and add their names to the Kuwaiti citizenship file under false identities. The fraudulent documents led to the issuance of Kuwaiti passports and civil ID cards, allowing the defendants to receive government salaries and benefits. Investigations revealed that the Kuwaiti citizen who facilitated the forgery had passed away, and further inquiries uncovered 12 other cases of citizenship fraud tied to him.
The court ordered the defendants to repay the salaries and benefits they had unlawfully received..
