KUWAIT CITY: Kuwaiti authorities have apprehended the person suspected of setting fire to a wedding tent and killing 41 people and said Monday the motive was personal.
Local newspapers reported the groom’s ex-wife was the arsonist.
The inferno Saturday night in the tribal area of Al-Jahra, west of Kuwait City, ate up the women’s tent in just three minutes and left behind bodies so charred they were unrecognizable. Guests likely crushed one another in a desperate attempt to flee. The alleged arsonist has been identified and “confessed to committing the crime for personal reasons,” Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Mohammed Al-Saber told state-owned Kuwait television. Al-Saber’s statement made no reference to an ex-wife.
But Kuwaiti newspapers said the groom’s former wife was to blame. The headline in the English-language Kuwait Times was “‘Scorned’ Woman Unleashed Fury.” The independent Al-Qabas daily said the groom’s former wife, who is 23 years old, poured gasoline on the tent and lit it because she felt her ex-husband mistreated her when they were married.
An Asian maid said she saw the groom’s ex-wife going to the party carrying a bottle full of benzene. She said the woman asked her to provide her with some newspapers but she refused.
A taxi driver told investigators he transported the woman from Rihab to a patrol station, where she filled two bottles with benzene. The woman asked another taxi to drop her in Oyoun where the wedding tent was located, Kuwaiti papers quoted informed sources as saying.
Mubarak Al-Waalan, a parliament member, called for a quick probe and urged the government to table its finding in parliament.
The “final and exact” death toll discussed in a high-level security meeting Monday was 41, said Kuwaiti Fire Department chief Brig. Gen. Jassem Al-Mansouri. Earlier reports Monday had raised the death toll to 43 after two people died on Sunday night from burns.
