Sheikh Mazen Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah

KUWAIT: Interior Ministry Assistant Undersecretary for Nationality and Passports Affairs Major General Sheikh Mazen Al-Jarrah said uncovering forgeries of Kuwaiti nationality continues, adding that what had been exposed lately is just a small part of a larger crime. Jarrah said the sector he heads is determined to put an end to the manipulation of the nationality file, and said there is direct security cooperation with Gulf counterparts to identify dual citizens, and "this is going on currently with Saudi Arabia and will expand soon to Qatar and UAE".

He said Kuwait-Gulf cooperation to discover dual citizens contributes to a largest extent to preventing manipulation of Kuwaiti nationality, especially since one of the accused in the forgery of a nationality file who escaped from a sentence passed against him, was able to hide because he has nationality of another country in a different name and continued entering and leaving Kuwait and continued with his criminal act.

Jarrah regretted that one of the suspects in this case worked at the nationality department, and also that the suspects were "Kuwaitis who found the Kuwait nationality cheap to a point that they added those who do not deserve the honor of getting it in their file, instead of their children, who are in other countries in exchange for a few dinars".

Parliamentary panel

He appreciated the parliamentary panel dealing with this issue, and pointed to the adoption by MP Abdullah Al-Turaiji of the issue in addition to other MPs. He said their defense of this national issue will have a great effect on supporting the efforts of security departments.

When asked about the delay in revealing such files, especially that some issues go back to a few years through which the forgers who became Kuwaitis benefited much more than what they paid to get the nationality and its advantages such as housing loans, housing care, marriage loan and student scholarships, Jarrah said the issue "is not as easy as some imagine, because it requires checking and follow up, in addition to prosecution warrants and assurances so that it will be possible to arrest a forger". He reminded of the report of Sheikh Thamer in checking the manipulation of nationality tests, which had many facts that prove that the issue is not transient and that there are many manipulators".

He said nationality manipulation is almost non-existent since the past two years due to a new plan that was made to investigate and monitor with its discovery systems, most important of which are DNA tests. - Al-Rai