Cairo: A senior Kuwaiti official has disclosed that a dual citizen, holding Kuwaiti nationality, had willingly gone up to authorities and abandoned his Kuwaiti citizenship to get rid of nightmares haunting him in sleep amid a crackdown in the country on illegal holders of Kuwaiti citizenship.
Kuwait has withdrawn its citizenship from hundreds of people since early March due to fraud or holding another nationality that is banned under Kuwaiti law.
Fahad Al Yousef, Kuwait's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence and Interior said in a video circulating online that a man bearing dual citizenship went of his own will to a police officer on duty to hand over his Kuwaiti citizenship.
"For two months, I have been unable to sleep. Fahd Al Yousef has kept appearing in my dreams. Let me sleep like other people and take your nationality," Al Yousef said in the video.
The official added that the man was a Saudi national, who also held Kuwaiti citizenship. Al Yousef stressed that Kuwaiti citizenship will be withdrawn from any person proven to have obtained it through forgery and fraud, or bearing dual nationality.
Kuwait, a country of around 4.9 million people mostly expatriates, has recently launched a clampdown on citizenship fraud and duality.
A Kuwaiti nationality verification committee has decided to withdraw citizenship from four dual citizens, who insisted on keeping their Canadian citizenship. The four are the nieces of an ex-state official, reported Kuwaiti news website Almajilis.
The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry has set up a hotline to receive reports about holders of dual citizenship or those who obtained it through forgery. The ministry has urged members of the public with related information to report it via the hotline for investigations, promising the whistleblowers full secrecy.
