KUWAIT CITY, 28 December 2005 — A Kuwaiti court yesterday ordered the hanging of six extremists accused of being members of a group linked to Al-Qaeda, the largest number of death sentences in a single case in the emirate’s history.
The condemned were charged with being members of a group calling itself the “Peninsula Lions Brigades” that was behind deadly gunfights with police in January and were said to be plotting more attacks.
Three of the men convicted by the criminal court are Kuwaiti nationals, while the other three are bedouins. A seventh accused, a Kuwaiti, was sentenced to life in prison.
Eight militants were killed in January’s clashes along with four police officers and two civilians. About 10 policemen were also wounded in the gunfights unprecedented in the Gulf state’s history.
The alleged leader of the group, Amer Khleif Al-Enezi, died in police custody eight days after his arrest on Jan. 31. His younger brother, Nasser, was killed a day earlier during a gunfight.
Twenty-two other suspects were handed jail terms between four months and 15 years. Among them was an Australian of Arab origin, Talal Aadri, who was sentenced to four years in prison.
The verdict was read out in the absence of all the accused, with lawyers and journalists the only people present in the court.
