Kuwait to carry out first executions since 2007

Execution in Kuwait

Authorities deny live television broadcast rumours.

Manama: On Monday, Kuwait will end a six-year hiatus on capital punishment and carry out its first executions since 2007.

Security sources that three people, a Saudi, a Pakistani and a stateless resident (Bidoon) will be executed at 8am inside the central prison.

The Saudi was sentenced to death for killing his friend, while the Pakistani was found guilty of killing a Kuwaiti couple. The Bidoon was given the capital punishment for murdering his wife and their children, claiming that he did it under the order of the ‘Awaited Mahdi’, Kuwaiti media reported.

Rumours sweeping through the northern Arabian Gulf country in the morning that the three executions would be broadcast live on Kuwait Television were denied by the security sources as “baseless and lacking credibility”.

However, newspapers were told by the security forces that they could send journalists to cover the executions.

Several death sentences have been handed down in the last seven years, but no execution was carried out.

According to Capital Punishment UK, an organisation that tracks capital punishment worldwide, Kuwait has carried out 72 executions (69 men and three women) between April 1964 and May 2007.

The organisation said that Kuwaiti law did not allow the execution of the insane or people under 18 years of age.

“Capital cases are automatically reviewed by the Court of Appeal, and if upheld, are referred to the Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court, before being sent to the Emir for ratification. Once they have been approved by the Emir, an execution order is issued by the chief justice and passed to the prosecutor general. Since 1969, terrorist and treason trials have been tried before the State Security Court,” it said.

Source: Gulf News, March 31, 2013

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