KUWAIT CITY, 16 March 2005 — Kuwait’s high court yesterday upheld a ruling that the country’s judiciary cannot look into the case of a suspected Al-Qaeda fugitive charged with funding the 2000 bombing of a US warship in Yemen, judicial sources said.
They said a lower court in 2003 sentenced Mohsen Al-Fadli and three other men to five years in jail in the case but an appeals court struck down that sentence last year, ruling that the case does not fall under the jurisdiction of Kuwaiti courts.
The prosecution, which had charged the four with being Al-Qaeda members and financing the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, had appealed the decision to the Court of Cassation but lost when Kuwait’s highest judicial body backed the appeals court ruling.
The bombing of the US warship, which killed 17 US sailors, was blamed on Al-Qaeda.
Fadli, a Kuwaiti, is being sought by security forces on suspicion of involvement in other Islamic militant activities, including a number of clashes between police and militants in January in Kuwait.
“The high court did not declare the four suspects innocent, but its decision effectively means they are no longer wanted here in connection with this particular case,” one source said.
Last month, an appeals court cleared Fadli of charges of funding attacks in Iraq, one day after the United States added his name to its list of financiers of terrorism. The court upheld a November ruling that found him innocent of funding attacks on US-led forces in Iraq.
