Saad Bin Tefla (also known as Saad Bin Tiflah or Saad Al Ajmi) is a Kuwaiti businessman and politician. He has notably been Kuwait’s minister of Information and Culture (1999–2000).[1]
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Saad Bin Tefla has headed the Kuwait Information Center in London and worked as an interpreter and advisor in the Kuwaiti parliament. From 1999 to October 2000, Bin Tefla has been appointed minister of Information and Culture.[2] Bin Tefla resigned unexpectedly in October 2000. His resignation was perceived as a betrayal by Kuwaiti liberals. However, his resignation was due to him not being able to fulfil the agenda he had planned to carry out as Minister and refused to be just a useless figure of the government.
Saad Bin Tefla is a former Kuwaiti professor and journalist. Now a local media tycoon, he headed the Kuwaiti press group Tashkeel Media Group in which he is now just a shareholder. Bin Tefla also is a contributor to the London based Arabic speaking newspaper Asharq al-Awasat as well as other Gulf publications.[3]
Saad Bin Tefla has also been accused of being responsible for the execution of Alaa Hussein, head of the puppet occupation government after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. According to analysts, Saad Bin Tefla promised him amnesty if he accepted to return to Kuwait.[4] In February 2010, during the retrial of Alaa Hussein, Saad Bin Tefla then denied in court making a deal with Alaa Hussein, letting him being sentenced to death. Yet, Saad Bin Tefla officially claims he stands against the death penalty. Alaa Hussein was sentenced to death in May 2000, soon after his come back.[5]
In 2006, when Saddam Hussein was executed, Saad Bin Tefla said that Saddam’s hanging was a good way to celebrate the holyday of Eid al-Adha (the most important holiday on the Islamic calendar). According to CPlash, this declaration "brought more instability to the Middle East".[6] It has also been condemned by muslim authorities as not compliant to the Quran’s [7] moral standards.
Interviewed by the New York Times, after Obama was granted the Nobel Peace prize, Bin Tefla regreted he gap between Obama's "good intentions and bad deeds".[8]