This week a complainant against Kuwait received what he described as a positive judgement and “undeniable victory” over a ruling by the World Bank’s arbitration body, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), in a case that is closely tied to the Malaysian 1MDB scandal.
It was back in March 2023, that the Kuwaiti courts had convicted three of their nationals for money laundering 1MDB connected cash stolen from Malaysia as part of an organised crime orchestrated by the Malaysian Jho Low.
These were the son of the then prime minister, Sheikh Sabah, his lawyer and college pal Hamad al Wazan. They received between seven and ten years terms of imprisonment.
The two also convicted in their absence were Jho Low himself, now a fugitive in China and Bachar Kiwan, the French whistleblower in the case whom the Kuwaiti government has at various times imprisoned over totally separate charges and then later sought to have extradited under an INTERPOL Red Notice that was declined by the Spanish courts.
The most recent crime for which Bachar had been charged in Kuwait was ‘people smuggling’. This was on the grounds that he had smuggled himself out of the country as he sought to escape a string of other charges that had been brought against him by his former business partner, Sheikh Sabah, after he had refused to participate in Jho Low’s money laundering through the companies they jointly owned.
As the ruling by the ICSID spells out, people smuggling is...
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