Kuwait’s Sheikh Ahmad convicted of forgery in Geneva trial

September 10, 2021

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -A Swiss criminal court convicted Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, a power broker in international sports, of forgery on Friday in a trial over whether he used a bogus Kuwaiti coup plot to gain advantage over political rivals.

The sheikh had denied all the charges in the case, which has divided the Kuwaiti ruling family and prompted Sheikh Ahmad, 58, to step back from some of his public sporting roles, including membership of the International Olympic Committee https://ift.tt/2X6chKu.

He said he would appeal against the conviction.

“I believe I am innocent,” he told reporters after the court handed him a 30-month sentence, half of which is to be served in jail. He said he was “100 percent” sure he would return for the appeal.

The criminal fraud case was launched in Switzerland as one of the sheikh’s co-defendants was, at the time of the alleged coup plot, a Geneva-based lawyer who acted for him.

A former OPEC Secretary General and prominent ruling family member, the sheikh was one of five defendants in the trial, all of whom were convicted.

The case revolves around videos purporting to show former prime minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed and the former speaker of parliament, Jassem al-Kharafi, plotting to overthrow Kuwait’s then-emir.

Prosecutors alleged that Sheikh Ahmad knew that the videos, which he passed on to Kuwaiti authorities, were fakes.

Sheikh Ahmad told the court last week he had submitted the videos to Kuwaiti authorities believing, at the time, that they were authentic.

In 2015, he publicly apologised in a statement via Kuwait TV to the former prime minister Sheikh Nasser, who is now the country’s emir, to Al-Kharafi and to their families for his role in the affair, saying he had thought the videos were genuine and credible.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Michael Shields and Gareth Jones)

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