KUWAIT: The criminal court yesterday released law activist Rana Al-Saadoun on a KD 500 bail and decided suspending a previous verdict of sentencing her to three years in jail in a case filed against her by the state security. Saadoun was accused of promoting a speech made by former MP Musallam Al-Barrak, which was found offensive to state figures. She was accordingly sentenced in absentia before she contested the verdict. Separately, the criminal court acquitted a former minister from charges of public funds' embezzlement along with others when he chaired a major company's board of directors. In other news, the court of appeal seconded a previous verdict sentencing Al-Watan newspaper to pay the chairman of Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) Ali Al-Ghanem compensation of KD 15,000 in a case he had filed accusing the newspaper of slandering him.

Electricity prices

MP Ali Al-Khamees stressed that what happened during last Wednesday's session when the parliament voted on exempting private residences from the proposed electricity consumption price increases, was in defense of citizens' rights and gains. Commenting on economists and former lawmakers' talk about privatization, Khamees stressed that the parliament cannot vote on privatizing government companies because the law issued in 2010, when many of the former MPs were in parliament, authorized the government alone to make decisions concerning privatization. "This is your own hands' doing, so why cry about privatizing some companies when you were the ones who voted on and approved that law giving the government such a right," he said.

Landlords penalized

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry intends to refer six real estate companies to prosecution for violating ministerial rules regulating these companies' work in marketing land and real estate outside Kuwait. The ministry stressed that proper investigations had been conducted to verify the violations had been committed. The ministry had been receiving complaints from citizens and other clients accusing these companies of not respecting the contracts signed with them.

Facial recognition

Capital health zone director Dr Afrah Al-Sarraf revealed intentions to use facial recognition systems for checking in and out of work at Amiri Hospital and various polyclinics in the Capital zone. Speaking on the sidelines of celebrating the International Day for Medical Biological Lab Technicians at the Amiri Hospital, Sarraf said that facial recognition aims at preventing any manipulation of fingerprints. She added that both prints would be used together. Sarraf added that database with information about all Capital health zone employees would be ready soon pending issuing magnetic IDs including all information about holders. Head of the Capital health zone labs Dr Samiya Abdul Salam said Amiri Hospital labs had been automatically linked to the hospital wards so that all test results could be easily and instantly accessed by the doctors requesting them.

By A Saleh