KUWAIT, 9 May 2005 — A Kuwaiti court yesterday sentenced a group of 20 suspected militants to three-year jail terms on charges of recruiting anti-US fighters for Iraq.
One of the 20, Abdullah Matar Al-Shimmari, was given an additional sentence of five years in jail for traveling to Iraq and forging a passport.
They were accused of involvement in “aggressive actions against a friendly nation, raising funds for militants engaged in fighting against US forces in Iraq and possessing illegal weapons.”
Another three defendants were fined the equivalent of $10,000 and a fourth about $3,400 in connection with the case.
A court official handed out papers containing the sentences to lawyers and journalists outside the courtroom.
The men were arrested in a police crackdown in July last year after Syria extradited four Kuwaitis, two of whom were arrested after returning from Iraq while the other two were arrested while trying to cross into the country.
Twenty-one of the convicts are Kuwaitis, one is a Saudi national and the remaining two are bidoons, or stateless Arabs. They include three teenagers.
The court ordered the Saudi national and one of the bidoons to be deported after serving the jail terms. It also ordered the confiscation of all arms and documents seized from the defendants.
Osama Al-Munawer, defense lawyer for 14 of the convicts, said he would appeal against the “harsh” sentences.
“Tomorrow, I will file an appeal against the verdicts because they are harsh. There was no evidence for the charges and the verdicts were based on confessions made during interrogations by security authorities,” he said.
Munawer said the convicts will not be sent to jail immediately pending the hearing of the appeals. Only one of the suspects had been in police custody, while 21 had been released on 300-dinar ($1,000) bail each and two remained at large.
One of the two, Khaled Al-Dossari, is being hunted for his alleged links to a string of deadly clashes that rocked the emirate in January.
Some of the men were charged with plotting to carry out an aggressive act against a foreign country by leaving Kuwait with the intent to fight against foreign troops in Iraq, thus endangering the emirate’s foreign ties.
Other defendants were charged with training some of the accused to use firearms and explosives and teaching them fighting skills. They were also accused of possessing illegal weapons.
Several Kuwaitis were jailed last year on charges of carrying out attacks on US forces in Kuwait, which is used by the United States as a main transit point for Iraq troop rotations and where some 25,000 American soldiers are stationed.
Sheikh Hamed Al-Ali, a religious scholar, was also arrested in March on charges of calling for jihad in Iraq, and of having links with militants who clashed with police in January.
More than 30 militants are being questioned by the public prosecution in connection with the gunfights before going on trial.
Four Kuwaiti security officers and eight militants were killed in the gun battles. The alleged leader of the group, Amer Khlaif Al-Enezi, died in police custody in early February.
