Kuwait executes seven people, first since 2017

Guilty of murder Kuwait put seven people to death for murder on Wednesday, the public prosecutions service said, as the first executions since 2017 went ahead despite appeals from a prominent rights group. One Ethiopian woman and one Kuwaiti woman were among those hanged, along with three Kuwaiti men, a Syrian and a Pakistani, a statement said. The executions are the first since January 25, 2017, when the Gulf country also hanged a group of seven people. They come only days after Saudi Arabia said it had executed two Pakistani nationals for smuggling heroin, ending a nearly three-year hiatus in executions for drug crimes. Kuwait has executed dozens of people since it introduced the death penalty in the mid1960s. Most of those condemned have been murderers or drug traffickers.