KUWAIT CITY, 25 September 2005 — Kuwait’s public prosecutor yesterday demanded the “maximum penalty” for 37 suspected militants accused of involvement in bloody clashes with police in January.

“The public prosecution insists on applying the law on these defendants and demands the maximum penalty for all of them,” public prosecutor Saud Al-Sane told the court.

Sane charged that the men formed a terrorist group called the “Peninsula Lions Brigades” and had “plotted to carry out terrorist attacks in Kuwait with the help of suicide bombers who came from abroad.” A number of foreigners are facing trial or were killed during four gun battles in January.

Sane said the group elected Amer Khleif Al-Enezi as its leader. Enezi, a former mosque imam, died in police custody on Feb. 8, after he was arrested following a gunfight on Jan. 31. He said the group also plotted to “overthrow the government and to attack foreign troops stationed in Kuwait. ... They smuggled arms from Iraq and manufactured large quantities of explosives.”

The prosecutor did not specify the penalty he was demanding for every suspect, but a defense lawyer said at least 20 of them faced capital punishment.

The prosecution had in its initial indictment to the court called for the death penalty for 34 of the suspects. Eight militants were killed in the clashes which also left four police officers and two civilians dead.

Eight of the suspects, including the only woman, are free on bail, 19 are in jail while the remaining 10 are still at large.

Defense lawyers who were supposed to start their arguments yesterday jointly called for delaying the arguments until the next hearing.

Brushing off reports that the defendants confessed under duress, the prosecution insisted that all the defendants willingly confessed without any force.

The defendants and their lawyers have accused authorities of resorting to torture to extract confessions. An independent medical commission appointed by the court said on Sept. 6 that it had found scars from beatings on some of the suspects.

The judge set the next hearing for Nov. 12.