Kuwaiti sheikh and Geneva lawyers indicted for forgery

Ahmad al-Sabah, shown here arriving at a FIFA meeting in Zurich, is said to be in a rivalry for power in Kuwait with Nasser al-Sabah Keystone

Three Geneva lawyers and a Kuwaiti sheikh have been indicted by Geneva justice authorities for forging an arbitration. The sheikh, Ahmad al-Sabah, is a member of the International Olympic Committee and the executive committee of world football governing body FIFA. 

A spokesman for the Geneva Public Prosecutor told the news agency AFP that four people had been indicted for “forgery” and confirmed an earlier report in the newspaper Le Temps that said the sheikh and three lawyers were indicted for having forged an arbitration video. According to Le Temps, that video was part of an ongoing legal dispute with one of the sheikh’s rivals for power in Kuwait, Nasser al-Sabah. 

At the core of that dispute, which goes back several years, was the authenticity of a video that discredited Nasser al-Sabah. Questions over that video were put under arbitration, a procedure commonly used by companies to settle disputes out of court. 

The current indictments against Ahmad al-Sabah and the three lawyers concern whether recordings of the subsequent arbitration were authentic or staged to favour Ahmad al-Sabah.

Lawyers for Ahmad al-Sabah say their client is “collaborating in the investigation,” is “not the sponsor of the arbitration” and “denies the charges against him”. The Geneva police has already made several interrogations and searches related to the matter, according to the Swiss News Agency SDA. 

SDA reports that a source close to the investigation deems the case as sensitive because it could damage Geneva’s reputation as an international seat of arbitration.