Doctor who cared for Kuwaiti royal family wins race case after London embassy sacking

A doctor who was assigned to senior members of Kuwait’s royal family has won race discrimination claims after being sacked from its London embassy.

Dr Lyazid Fenniche, 60, brought the claims after being fired as an in-house doctor at an embassy department in Westminster which arranges healthcare at UK hospitals for members of the country’s ruling elite suffering “serious” and “more sensitive” illnesses.

Mr Fenniche, an Algerian national, had been assigned to several members of the Al Sabah royal family in his fifteen-year role at the Kuwait Health Office, including one senior minister and potential heir to the throne.

In a ruling this week, the Central London Employment Tribunal upheld six complaints of racial harassment, alternatively racial discrimination, and one complaint of direct complaint of racial discrimination against the Kuwaiti government over Mr Fenniche’s 2019 sacking.

The tribunal heard how the doctor was removed from patient-facing duties in early 2017 because he “frequently made mistakes”.

He was instead asked to issue backdated “letters of guarantee” to hospitals to pay them after reviewing patients’ records and was later fired in July 2019 with no reason given.

Among the upheld claims were that his line manager Dr Eid told him in December 2018 he was “not worthy to represent Kuwait”, which judges found “plainly had a racial component”.

The tribunal found that he was moved to a desk in a corridor near to the building’s toilets for several weeks in early 2019 despite there being an available office space.

The panel also found that he was asked to process 150 files a week, which was “clearly unrealistic” and then reprimanded when he could not do so.

However, eight other race claims brought by Mr Fenniche were rejected by the tribunal, including a complaint over leave requests being denied. The tribunal also rebuked him for his evidence in hearings, saying much of it was “wildly exaggerated”.

Several other claims could not be heard by the tribunal because of state immunity granted to diplomatic missions.

The case comes after the Standard revealed in December that ministers were planning a tightening of the law to prevent embassies from claiming immunity in alleged employment law abuses.

Employment Judge Snelson said Kuwait needed to learn lessons from “this unhappy story”.

“It is not open to them to employ staff in the UK without accepting responsibility for treating them in accordance with applicable equality and employment relations legislation and practice,” Judge Snelson said.

“Ignoring that responsibility will inevitably land them with further valid claims and associated reputational damage.”

The Standard has contacted Kuwait’s Embassy in London for comment.

A case management hearing is due in March before a remedy hearing to decide damages.