The scandal unfolded during the Eid Al-Adha holiday when a Kuwaiti woman came to Bayan police station and claimed she was beaten up by the deputy director of special forces Col Shukri Al-Najjar when they were on yacht on Sunday along with another female. The colonel later followed her and beat her again, causing some injuries.
The woman later claimed that she was forced by senior officers at the police station not to lodge a complaint and claimed she was given KD 10,000 from the colonel to keep silent.
The woman however changed her mind when details of the agreement were released on Twitter and other blogs, and brought a medical report and filed a complaint. Col Najjar has been behind bars at the interior ministry’s inspection department and was interrogated several times at the orders of the interior minister.
The interior ministry has so far remained silent but reports on various media outlets suggest he has been asked to undergo tests for alcohol and drugs because the woman claimed the colonel was drunk and had drugs when he beat her.
The incident became a political issue because it was Najjar who commanded the elite special forces that beat up people and several MPs at the diwaniya of MP Jamaan Al-Harbash in December last year for which the prime minister was grilled and was among the reasons for forcing former interior minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Khaled Al-Sabah to resign.
Al-Harbash and a number of MPs yesterday charged that a Cabinet minister other than the interior minister interfered in the issue in a bid to cover up the incident and protect the officer.
Al-Harbash said that the interior minister is under tremendous pressure from the "forces of corruption", adding that the minister is at a crossroads – he either applies the law to safeguard Kuwait or relents to pressure from corruption forces to keep his post.
The lawmaker also sent 16 questions to the minister asking for details on the scandal, focusing mostly on what happened at the police station and whether the victim had been intimidated by police officers to compel her not to file a complaint.
In one of the questions AL-Harbash asked if the woman was pressurised to delete claims that the colonel had attempted to kill her.
Opposition MP Musallam Al-Barrak meanwhile asked the minister about the identity of a senior police officer who intervened in the interrogation with the woman and pressured her to change some of her testimony.
Al-Barrak asked who had ordered the officer to go to the police station and interfere in the investigation. The lawmaker also asked the interior minister if another minister called a senior interior ministry official asking him to cover up the scandal.
MP Dhaifallah Buramia demanded that the interior minister publicly explain if that minister made the call and if that attempt was made with his knowledge, adding that the interior minister must reveal the identity of that minister.
