Police fail in fourth bid to arrest former Kuwait MP

Kuwaiti Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmed al-Humoud al-Sabah leaves the hall during a parliament session yesterday following disputes over the arrest of opposition leader Mussallam al-Barrak.  

AFP/Kuwait

Elite special forces with assault rifles did not find the former MP at his home southwest of Kuwait City, said Saad al-Ajmi, head of the media office of the Popular Action Movement in which Barrak is a prominent figure.

Barrak, who says he is prepared to go to jail at any time, had refused to turn himself in three times in the past two days because interior ministry officials failed to produce an original arrest warrant.

On Monday, a court ordered Barrak, an outspoken critic of the government, jailed for five years after he was convicted on charges of insulting the emir in a public speech in October.

Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmed al-Humoud al-Sabah called on Barrak “to give himself in and then challenge the jail sentence in court”.

He told reporters following a special parliamentary debate on the “latest security situation” after the ruling on Barrak, that there is no selectivity in applying the law.

Barrak told local pro-opposition television station Al Youm that although the judgement is illegal and unfair, he was not refusing to go to jail but only needed to see the original arrest order as required by the law.

The former lawmaker described the raid on his house as a “cowardly action by the government” and said some of his relatives were beaten up and badly treated.

Earlier, members of the pro-government parliament criticised the interior minister for not arresting Barrak and curbing opposition protests.

“If he (Barrak) refuses arrest, we should send him armoured vehicles from the army and the national guard,” said MP Nabeel al-Fadhl in a debate shortly before the raid.

Opposition activists called for a rally later in the day to protest the raid and the jail term against Barrak, after staging street demonstrations in the past two days for the same reason.

Unidentified activists hacked the information ministry website during the night and posted the speech of Barrak for which he was punished.

Yesterday, the ministry played down the cyber-attack, saying that only “an old page was actually hacked.”