The Supreme Committee for the Investigation of Kuwaiti Citizenship ordered the revocation after the Nationality Investigations Department reopened files of individuals who had never completed biometric fingerprinting. The review focused on a man identified only as (M), born in 1939, who obtained citizenship in 1965 under Article 1 of the 1959 Kuwaiti Nationality Law based on witness statements that his father had lived in Kuwait before 1920. In 1967 the same process extended citizenship to three men listed as his brothers, identified as (S), (A) and (B), according to committee records.
Committee documentation showed that (B) had secured a Gulf identity card in 1959, eight years before receiving Kuwaiti citizenship. When (B) registered his first child in 1975 he presented a Gulf marriage certificate bearing a different name and later described the mismatch as a material error before supplying a Kuwaiti contract. By 2006 (B) had applied to renounce the Gulf documents, at which stage the names aligned with his Kuwaiti file, the Supreme Committee for the Investigation of Kuwaiti Citizenship found.
The Nationality Investigations Department determined that (M) maintained no biometric record, held no passport and showed no travel history since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Neither (S) nor (A) displayed any entry or exit records, civil identification or registered offspring while (B) retained active documentation that included an official ID card, recorded movements and a family network encompassing 22 sons and 105 dependents in total. The committee concluded the 1967 grants to the three men as brothers were impermissible and that prior Gulf nationality had been concealed from authorities.
Following those findings the Supreme Committee for the Investigation of Kuwaiti Citizenship directed the withdrawal of Kuwaiti nationality from (M), (S), (A), (B) and all 105 dependents linked to their files. Roughly 80 members of the extended family left Kuwait after the irregularities became known. The decision forms one outcome of systematic file examinations that have intensified in recent years.
The Ministry of Interior has stated that a 2025 decree authorised scientific methods including DNA analysis, fingerprint matching and biometric cross-checks to verify historical citizenship claims. The Supreme Committee for the Investigation of Kuwaiti Citizenship, chaired by the interior minister, has applied these tools to numerous legacy cases where paper records conflicted with later data. Such reviews target alleged irregularities in original applications submitted under provisions for long-settled residents and their descendants.
Data tracked by the Newsroom Initiative placed the cumulative number of recorded citizenship revocations above 71,000 by mid-April 2026 as part of the broader verification campaign. The committee has described the process as an effort to correct documented irregularities in grants issued decades earlier. Amendments enacted in 2026 to the nationality law further detailed procedures for withdrawal while classifying the decisions as sovereign acts.
