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Kotco case hearing adjourned

KUWAIT - Kuwaiti appeal court on Tuesday adjourned the hearing on the appeal put forward by the Kuwaiti Oil Tankers Company (Kotco) against a verdict of the commercial court, which refrained from enforcing the verdict issued by a British court against three people accused of embezzlement of funds beloning to the company.

The court which put off the hearing until February 1, allowed the appealing company to obtain a certificate from the check posts directorate at the Interior Ministry containing information on the entry and exit of the appeallee Timor Staford, a British citizen from and to Kuwait.

The British court had ordered Abdell Fattah Al Badr, a Kuwaiti (in absentia) and Hassan Gabazard, Kuwaiti, who is now standing trial, to pay more than $90.634 million provided that the verdict was to be enforced in Kuwait. Kuwaiti Court, however refused to enforce the foreign sentence on the basis of the fact that it lacks many requirements, which the Kuwaiti Law need to see the justice done.

Meanwhile, the lawyer Labeed Abdellah, who was assigned to defend the accused Abadr said that the British Court's verdict was contrary to previous rulings issued by the Cabinet's Court, which ruled the interrogations made with Shaikh Ali Al Khalifa Al Sabah, who was one of the suspects in the case including my client, were null and void.

The verdict issued by the British Court lack many requirements, which the Kuwait law call for to enforce a foreign court's ruling, he said and considered the implementation of alien verdict a precedent in the history of judiciary in Kuwait.