Muhammad Abdelghaffar
13 April 2021•Update: 13 April 2021
KUWAIT CITY
A Kuwaiti court on Tuesday ordered the detention of former Prime Minister Jaber al-Mubarak al-Hamad al-Sabah on corruption charges, a Kuwaiti legal source said.
Jaber Al-Sabah is the first former Kuwaiti prime minister to be held pending investigation into graft accusations.
The court "ordered the imprisonment of Jaber Al-Sabah, who appeared before it today, in the case of the Army Fund,” the source told Anadolu Agency.
According to the source, the court also refused to release former Interior Minister Sheikh Khaled Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah along with two army officials imprisoned in the same case.
"The court imposed a gag order at the request of the defense team of the former premier and the former interior minister," the source said.
"It is prohibited to publish any news or data about the case in all print, audio, and visual media and in all news and social communication programs on the internet," the source added.
Local daily Al-Qabas said the court had scheduled a session on April 27 for the case, without clarifying the period of imprisonment for the former premier.
The case dates back to November 2018, when former Defense Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Sabah submitted a complaint about "violations and suspected crimes related to public finance that occurred in the Army Fund that exceeded 240 million Kuwaiti dinars ($768 million)."
The crimes allegedly took place during Jaber Al-Sabah’s 2001-2011 term as defense minister.
The Army Fund was founded in the 1950s with goals concerning the country’s national security and is supervised by defense ministers.
*Writing by Mahmoud Barakat
