Public prosecution of Kuwait addressed to the National Assembly, regarding the lifting of immunity from the two members of Kuwait parliament, Saadoun Hammad and Salah Khurshid, in the case of human trafficking in which the Bangladeshi lawmaker Mohammed Shahid Islam alias Kazi Papul is charged.
Papul, a lawmaker from Lakshmipur-2 constituency, made confessions during the investigation of providing financial sums to Hammad and Khurshid in exchange to facilitate transactions to recruit workers from Bangladesh by obtaining exceptions from the relevant government ministries, reports Arab Times.
According to the Kuwaiti public prosecution's memorandum, during supplementary investigations on June 16, Kazi Papul revealed that he paid money to a number of people to facilitate his transactions in the state, and they are:
Through secret investigations it was indicated that it was an organised gang that trafficked people with the intention of material gain consisting of both a Kuwaiti person (a first accused) and Kazi Papul (a second defendant) using a company owned by the first defendant, to recruit and bring in workers from the state of Kuwait to work for the company.
Although the company was closed due to legal violations, the workers arrived in Kuwait and they discovered that the contracts were fake and they were forcibly employed in another company owned by the second defendant.
They were forced to work against their will for long working hours in inhuman working conditions without paying their wages or providing adequate housing according to what was stipulated.
He attacked those who objected and threatened them to register a false absconding case against them. Some workers in the two companies were used as witnesses where all of them decided the validity of what was included in the investigations. They added that they were brought in through a travel agency owned by the second accused Kazi Papul in the People's Republic of Bangladesh.
The prosecution added that on June 13 the residence of the second suspect was searched along with the company owned by him which was in partnership with another which resulted in the finding of bank documents and cheques issued in the names of people, some of them working in as officials in government ministries.
During investigations it was confirmed that the accused Bangladeshi lawmaker Kazi Papul, has money collected in fraudulent ways, intentionally hiding some of its sources which he collected from his victims from human trafficking crimes, he gave bribes to government employees to facilitate his transactions in the official authorities.
By questioning the accused Bangladeshi lawmaker Kazi Papul, he initiated the investigation at the beginning by denying all the charges levied against him, and denied his link to the incident which was under investigation.
After searching his residence and company owned by him and others, he admitted during the investigation based on the documents that he is the actual manager of the company and that the money shown in the form of cheques he paid to some employees in government agencies/ministries which was done with the intention of speeding up the procedures that are not in violation of the law.
Kazi Papul also confessed he deals with the travel office located in Bangladesh to bring workers to Kuwait in exchange for cash and these sums are directed immediately to a charity which are not deposited in his bank accounts. He is not responsible for all the facts related to the employment of workers such as, collecting of daily sums from them during work, as well as not responsible for the workers' housing as this responsibility lies with the companies' supervisors of labourer housing.
