Bahrain Mirror: Kuwait General Administration of Customs denied any responsibility in regards to finding detonators and bomb-making equipment with a Bahraini passenger aboard bus which came from Iraq and passed through Kuwaiti territory. The customs administration stressed that it "took all the necessary inspection measures and that the explosives might have been put on the bus in another place".

In a statement given to the Al-Rai Kuwaiti newspaper, the Director General of Kuwait's General Administration of Customs, Khaled Al-Saif, said that: "All necessary customs measures were taken at the Al-Nuwaiseeb and Al-Abdali ports, concerning the bus that came from Iraq and was heading to Bahrain with 54 passengers aboard. No illegal materials were found."

Al-Saif added that: "The Customs personnel fulfilled their duties. The bus was inspected by an X-Ray scanner and searched by police dogs and performed a thorough search manually aboard the vehicle. All the results were positive".

Al-Saif also explained that after making sure all the measures were taken accurately, the bus was placed above a pit and inspected again from beneath as an additional precautionary measure. He then added that "despite all the measures the General Administration of Customs takes, it cannot prevent smuggling 100%. This; however, doesn't mean that it would take any measure or any piece of information lightly. On the contrary, it will treat the situation with great accuracy and consideration in coordination with the ministry of interior."

For his part, Director of the Land Customs Department, Adnan Al-Qadeebi, stated: "According to the director general's orders, an inquiry was made into the accuracy of information that emerged about finding detonators in one of the passenger's luggage aboard a bus that entered Kuwait from Iraq on March 14th." Al-Qadeebi also pointed out that "It was found that all the customs measures taken were proved to be accurate and the detonators may have come from another source outside Kuwait".

As for, Fahad Al-Ajami, the Customs Inspector at Al-Nuwaiseeb (Kuwaiti area on Kuwait-Saudi border), he said: "The port deals with 400 trucks and buses on a daily basis and takes all the legal customs measures."

In a statement, Terror Crimes Chief Prosecutor Ahmed Al-Hammadi had stressed that the juvenile to whom the bag containing those equipment belonged, confessed that he had brought it from Iraq, at the request of a relative there to deliver to someone in the Sitra area.

Human rights organizations raised questions about this incident, since they doubt that the judicial system whose members are appointed by royal decrees is an independent institution, and since its rulings are based on false confessions forced by torture.

The arabic issue