By B Izzak

KUWAIT: Opposition Islamist MP Mohammad Hayef yesterday filed to grill Interior Minister Anas Al-Saleh over what he called the minister's silence on police tapping of citizens' accounts and for not taking action against crimes committed by senior police officers. The grilling comes a day after the minister comfortably defeated a no-confidence vote following a grilling by MP Shuaib Al-Muwaizri last week over allegations of benefiting from his post and failing to halt police violations.

Hayef based his grilling on two incidents that took place in the security systems under the interior ministry. The first is the leaks of two videos containing sensitive material on social media and involving senior officers from the state security agency. The second incident allegedly involved another senior interior ministry officer who destroyed 60,000 confidential files from the ministry's database.

MP Hayef alleged that in both cases, the interior minister knew of the incidents but did not take any punitive action against either, and to the contrary he promoted them. The leaked videos showed the state security agency chief and a senior ruling family member plotting to tap the social media accounts of Kuwaiti citizens in violation of the law.

The interior minister had already suspended the state security chief along with seven officers. He has already sent him on retirement after promoting his rank but later withdrew the decision to reassess if it was in line with the law. The government has sent the case to the public prosecution and the state security chief yesterday was interrogated by the public prosecution regarding the case.

MP Hayef said that tapping the accounts of the people breaches the constitution and the privacy of the people which is protected under the constitution, and charged the minister of taking no action before the case became public.

The lawmaker also accused the minister of covering up major crimes committed by senior officers, recalling a crime committed by an officer who destroyed 60,000 sensitive files from the ministry's database. Hayef claimed the minister did not take any action and in fact promoted the officer to a higher rank.

He also charged that the ministry officials failed to take action against fraudulent people who cheated thousands of bedoons or stateless people by selling them passports of other countries which turned out to be fake. Hayef said that thousands of bedoon families are still suffering of this scandal while the interior ministry did not take any action against those who made the scandal.

As the term of the National Assembly is about to expire ahead of the parliamentary elections expected in late November, the number of grillings has increased straining ties between the government and the assembly. On Wednesday, MPs Abdulkarim Al-Kandari and Al-Humaidi Al-Subaie filed two separate grillings against the prime minister. MP Riyadh Al-Adasani has threatened to file a third grilling. The assembly is due to debate two grillings against the education minister next week.