4 jailed over 9-year home detention of divorcee

AKuwaiti court has ordered four citizens jailed on charges of holding a divorced woman by force in the family’s house for nine years.

The case erupted in public last May after police freed the woman from a cell-like room where she had been held against her will due to a dispute with her family.

The incarceration was imposed after the woman asked to live independently after her divorce, an idea rejected by her father who locked up in the room. Her brothers continued her detention after their father’s death.

Her plight was revealed through a housemaid, who communicated with her and informed a lawyer who in turn filed a complaint with Kuwait’s chief prosecutor. Later, police raided the house in the governorate of Al Farwaniyah, freed the woman and arrested the brothers.

The criminal court on Thursday ordered the jailing of the woman’s three brothers and ex-husband.

It also ordered that the woman’s three sisters be released on bail of 20,000 dinars each pending resumption of the trial on October 14. During investigation, the victim’s brothers and sisters claimed that were unaware of her detention.