State Security Court Sentences Citizen to Life Imprisonment in Case of Attempting to Collude with Iran and Hezbollah Terrorist Group

Amir Zaki – Abdul Karim Ahmed

The State Security Department at the Court of Appeal annulled the first-instance ruling that had sentenced a Kuwaiti citizen to 10 years in prison, and instead imposed a life sentence after convicting him of seeking to collude with Iran and the terrorist “Hezbollah,” meeting with their leaders, and undergoing training in handling and using weapons and operating drones within Kuwait. This training was conducted under the supervision of elements from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the terrorist “Hezbollah” in the city of Qom, with the aim of harming the country’s national interests.

In another case, the court annulled the first-instance ruling that had sentenced a Kuwaiti woman to three years in prison on charges of inciting sectarian strife via WhatsApp and Snapchat applications. It ordered that no punishment be pronounced against her, and acquitted her of the charge of promoting the ideas of the terrorist “Hezbollah.”

The court also sentenced a Kuwaiti man to three years in prison after convicting him of insulting the Rightly Guided Caliphs, disparaging Shia citizens, and inciting sectarian strife and public panic. This was in connection with a phone call he made to a bank, during which he provided false information, coinciding with the reprehensible Iranian attacks and the exceptional circumstances that accompanied them.

On another front, the Court of Cassation’s Third Division upheld the five-year prison sentence of an employee at a Citizen Services Center, and also fined her 4,800 Kuwaiti dinars for forging entry permits for expatriates in exchange for a bribe of 2,400 dinars. The suspect was apprehended following an ambush by the Residency Affairs Investigation Department, after receiving information about her involvement in this criminal activity.