KUWAIT CITY, 30 June 2004 — Kuwait’s highest court yesterday upheld a 15-year prison sentence against a Kuwaiti police officer convicted of trying to kill two US soldiers in 2002.
The verdict sentencing Khalid Messier Al-Shimmari, 21, to 10 years for attempted murder and another five for unlawful possession of arms is now final.
He was also fired from his Interior Ministry job.
In March last year, Shimmari was found guilty of wounding the two soldiers, both assigned to the US Third Army, while they were traveling on a highway south of Kuwait City.
The soldiers were in a civilian vehicle but in military uniform and on “official business” when they were shot on Nov. 21, 2002.
Shimmari fled to Saudi Arabia after the attack, where he was arrested and sent back to Kuwait. His lawyer Nawaf Al-Mutairi had maintained throughout the trial that his client was mentally ill.
The criminal court on Sunday sentenced Kuwaiti Ali Nasser Al-Ajmi to 15 years in prison for attempting to kill 21 US soldiers and scores of Asian workers last year.
On June 5, two Kuwaitis were sentenced to five years in prison and a third to four years for their links to the killing of a US Marine in October 2002, when the two Kuwaiti assailants were also gunned down.
The same court on May 31 sentenced Egyptian truck driver Lutfi Al-Barbari to five years in prison for trying to kill 13 US soldiers at the height of the US-led invasion of Iraq in spring 2003.
Some 25,000 US troops are based in Kuwait, which served as the main launchpad for the invasion that ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
