Comoros passport sales scandal
[1] Proceeds from the program were intended to finance development in the country but were instead embezzled by the perpetrators of the scheme, which include Syrian fugitive businessman Bashar Kiwan and two former Comorian Presidents.
[3] From 21 to 24 November 2022, Ahmed Abdullah Sambi, Bashar Kiwan, Majd Suleiman, and other directors of Comoro Gulf Holdings were tried for high treason, embezzlement and money laundering of Comorian public funds allegedly diverted from the economic citizenship program.
In 2008, Said Attoumani, the former Comoran minister responsible for promoting foreign investment, praised the expected $100 million from wealthy Gulf investors in support of the prospective law.
[12] The new law was passed in November 2008 after a number of "fact-finding" missions by Comoran politicians to Kuwait and the UAE organized by Comoro Gulf Holdings partners Bachar Kiwan, Majd Suleiman, Sheikh Sabah Jaber Mubarak Al-Sabah and Mohammed Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi,[10][12] in which "deputies received laptops and other gifts.
After passage of the economic citizenship law, Bachar Kiwan marketed the opportunity to purchase Comorian passports en masse to the governments of Kuwait and the UAE, for distribution to their local Bedoon (stateless resident) populations.
[4][12] According to ex-President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, the UAE pledged to $200 million in exchange for the naturalisation of 4,000 Bidoon families who would obtain Comorian citizenship documents.
[4] Comoran Foreign Minister Souef Mohamed El Amine said that the "vast majority of people who secured passports (outside the official program) are of Iranian origin or are working for Iran," a situation which had "created problems for Comoros with regard to our partners in the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates".
[5] In 2016, Azali Assoumani was elected president and in 2017 set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry to investigate the program providing citizenship to the UAE and Kuwait for the Bidoon.
The commission summoned Albert Karaziwan, the owner and CEO of Semlex Group, the company that had printed the Comoran passports in September 2017, hoping he would give evidence.
[4] The report accused former Comoran presidents Ahmed Abdullah Sambi and Ikililou Dhoinine with "involvement in systematic fraud" and called for criminal action against the pair.
[23] From 21 to 24 November 2022, Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, Mohamed Ali Soilihi, Bashar Kiwan, Majd Suleiman, and other directors of Comoro Gulf Holdings were tried for high treason, embezzlement and money laundering of Comorian public funds allegedly diverted from the economic citizenship program.
