Member of royal family among seven hanged in Kuwait

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait on Wednesday hanged seven people including a member of the ruling family and a woman who burned dozens of people to death at a wedding party, the authorities said.

The three women and four men are the first to be executed in the state since mid-2013.

They included two Kuwaitis, two Egyptians and one each from Bangladesh, the Philippines and Ethiopia, a statement by the public prosecution office said.

Shaikh Faisal Abdullah al Sabah, the first royal to be executed in the emirate, was convicted of shooting and killing his nephew, another member of the ruling family, in 2010 over a dispute.

Nusra al Enezi, the other Kuwaiti, set fire to a tent in 2009 during a wedding party in an apparent act of revenge against her husband for taking a second wife.

Many of the 57 people killed were women and children.

Enezi, who was 23 years old at the time, threw petrol on the tent, where people were celebrating inside, and burned it down in one of the most devastating crimes in the history of Kuwait.

The Filipina and Ethiopian women were domestic helpers convicted of murdering members of their employers’ families in two unrelated crimes.

The two Egyptians were also convicted of premeditated murder while the Bangladeshi was convicted of abduction and rape.

Kuwait resumed executions in 2013 after a moratorium of six years. — AFP