Decision upheld, Kuwaiti blogger gets 3 yrs jail for offending ruler
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 12: The Court of Appeals, chaired by Judge Nasser Al Hayed, upheld the decision of the lower court which sentenced a Kuwaiti blogger to three years and two months in prison for offending the Amiri entity on Twitter.
The accused was referred to the court according to the decision of the Public Prosecution that charged him with violating the State Security Law and Misdemeanor Law due to the offensive tweets.
In addition, the Court of Appeals set Sept 18, 2019 for issuance of verdict on the case of blogger Abdullah Al-Saleh who was convicted of offending the United Arab Emirates.
The First Instance Court had earlier sentenced Al-Saleh to five years in prison. He is currently out of the country as he escaped.
Various Kuwaiti courts previously sentenced Al-Saleh to a total of 31 years imprisonment.
Moreover, the Court of Appeals recently held the first hearing on a State security lawsuit filed against a former Imam of a mosque, identified only as HA, for offending a neighboring country.
The court adjourned the hearing as per the request of the defendant’s lawyer for reading the lawsuit and obtaining copy of the attached documents. The accused appeared in court where he denied the charges against him.
Defamation lawsuit: The Misdemeanors Court has acquitted a citizen of defaming one of the suspects in Al-Sadeq Mosque bombing who was acquitted by the court.
The citizen was accused of posting the picture of the suspect on his personal Twitter account and captioned it with verses from the Holy Quran which call for retribution.
Representing the citizen was Attorney Muhammad Al-Husseini who argued the prosecution second guessed his client given that the verse of the Holy Quran had no comment or any indication of targeting the plaintiff. He added the Cyber Crime Law did not specify this kind of action as it is illegal to judge people based on their intentions, let alone the fact that his client denied all charges leveled against him since the start of the case.
Drug peddlers absolved: The Criminal Court acquitted two Egyptians – caretaker and shopkeeper – of trading in hashish and narcotic pills after they were nabbed in Khaitan by detective police from the Anti-narcotics Department.
According to the case file, the detectives received a tip-off about the narcotic trade which was operated by one of the suspects, and after putting the suspect under surveillance, the officers were issued with arrest warrant through which they arrested the caretaker who was found with narcotic pills in his pocket. He also led the officers to the shopkeeper who was also found in possession of narcotics.
Representing the two suspects was Attorney Enaam Haydar who argued that her clients were arrested before the officers were issued with arrest warrant. She said the investigation which they conducted was faulty, and that her clients were not arrested under any circumstance which warrants suspicion of conducting illegal deals.
Automatic collection: The Fine Collection Team at the Public Prosecution has completed the automation project for collection of fines linking the Sentence Execution Unit, International Collaboration Unit and Kuwait Municipality.
The project will enable suspension of transactions for individuals who do not pay judicial fines in Municipality branches until the money is paid to the authority.
The prosecution urged citizens and expatriates to ensure quick payment of judicial fines through the website www. kuwaitcourts.gov.kw or concerned offices in the Ministry of Justice to avoid suspension of their transactions.
Kuwaiti files case: An unidentified Kuwaiti has filed a case against some employees of the Egyptian consulate in Kuwait accusing them of ‘assaulting’ him inside the consulate compound, and this confirms a report that had been published by the Al-Rai newspaper on July 8, 2019, reports the daily.
According to the case papers the Kuwaiti says he had accompanied his Lebanese friend to the consulate to complete some documents and since it was very hot and humid he stepped inside the consulate premises for shelter and he was pulled inside the consulate building by the accused tied and beaten with a belt.
According to a reliable source the Ministry of Interior is in the process of addressing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find out the circumstances of what happened and to complete the legal procedures.