KUWAIT CITY, 18 August 2004 — Two Sri Lankans were hanged in Kuwait yesterday and their corpses displayed in public after they were convicted of murdering a Canadian citizen of Sri Lankan origin over a liquor sale dispute.
Uwaisdeen Abdurabi Nistar and Abdulhassan Mohammad Ajmeer, found guilty of killing Markandu Kaja, were executed in front of the Interior Ministry in Kuwait City before dozens of spectators were allowed to view their limp bodies.
A third accomplice, Mir Muhideen Naseer, was sentenced to life in prison for helping to plan the May 2002 crime.
The death sentence was upheld by two appeals courts and approved by the emir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah.
Nistar and Ajmeer had abducted their victim, driving him to a remote desert area before shooting him at point blank range with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, after he refused to pay the required price for a liquor shipment.
Alcohol is banned in Kuwait, but smuggled and home-brewed liquor can be bought on the black market at vastly inflated prices.
The KUNA news agency reported on Monday that police seized 13,200 bottles of whisky with an estimated value close to $1.4 million on the black market.
The liquor was found in a truck while crossing the border from Iraq into the emirate through a gate used exclusively by the US-led coalition forces, KUNA quoted a security official as saying. Police confiscated the shipment and arrested the driver, a Syrian.
Senior Kuwaiti police and judicial officials attended yesterday’s execution, the sixth since June 2002 in which the public was allowed to view the dead bodies.
Kuwait has executed 54 people since the first execution was carried out in the emirate four decades ago.
