Al-Raya CEO sued by the SEC was shot

According to a security official at the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry, Hazem al-Braikan, chief executive officer of Al-Raya, an asset-management firm created in 2007, was found dead from a gun-shot wound. The US SEC sued al-Braikan along with Al-Raya investment, United Gulf Bank BSC and Kipco Asset Management for allegedly placing ``highly profitable and suspicious'' trades before newspaper and Internet reports claiming investors planned to buy Textron and Harman International Industries. The Kuwait-based financier and firms reaped more than $US5 million ($6 million) from the transactions, the SEC said in the lawsuit targeting the traders on July 23.

Besides, the Securities and Exchange Commission persuaded a federal court judge in Manhattan to freeze the defendants' assets while it investigates. The SEC hasn't yet accused anyone of orchestrating the false reports. United Gulf Bank BSC denied it profited from the transactions saying it placed the positions on a client's behalf.

Al-Raya said in a June 2008 statement that Citigroup Inc. owned 10 % of the firm.

Jacob Frenkel, a former SEC lawyer now with Shukman, Rogers, Gandal, Pordy & Ecker PA in Maryland, said that the SEC can still continue its efforts to pursue collecting the alleged ''ill-gotten gains'' as it is a civil suit.