Kuwaitis accused of corruption will be retried

The Kuwaiti daily Arab Times has said that a Kuwaiti court has decided to retry persons accused in the stealing public sums in which four former state employees on Kuwait Oil Tanker Company had been involved.

The daily said the court set November 23 as the date of the first hearing session, adding that the four persons will face 13 charges, including illegal profiting and stealing US $71 million.

The Kuwaiti Criminal Court found the four men guilty in June 1996, but the court of cassation canceled the sentence due to lack of evidence.

Recently, the Kuwait Oil Tanker Company decided to try the four accused persons: company chairman Abdul Fattah al-Bader and his former assistant, Hassan Qaba Zird (both are Kuwaitis); the former financial director at the company, Nasim Muhsin (Jordanian); and former executive director Timothy Staford (British).