The Public Prosecution Department rejected an appeal submitted by 13 suspects who have been accused in the multi-million dinar cash deposits case to lift a freeze imposed on their bank accounts. It stated that no reprieve can be granted since the ongoing investigations have not ruled out suspicions of bribery charges. “It is impossible to lift the freeze since the case is still investigated by the Prosecution of Public Funds while ongoing investigations reveal that bribery suspicions still stand,” said sources in statements to Al-Qabas commenting on Attorney General Dherar Al-Asousy’s decision to reject the appeal.
The thirteen accused are members from the 2009 parliament in which they served as pro-government MPs, and whose ‘suspiciously inflated bank accounts’ were first exposed by Al-Qabas daily last year, fueling speculation that the government could be controlling the parliament through bribery. The case sparked public ire which ultimately forced former prime minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah to resign last November and the parliament to be dissolved a month later.
The ‘high-level sources’ confirmed that the freeze will remain “until investigations prove that multi-million deposits were earned through legal means.” In their appeal, the accused argued that the freeze is no longer valid when no evidence exists to prove that irregularities in deposits appeared a year after the case was first brought to the public.Investigations are currently focusing on examining documents provided by the accused for ‘investments inside and outside Kuwait,’ they claim to be the source of the multi-million profits deposited. Sources indicate that the examination process is going to take ‘a long time’ without specifying a timeline.
