Kuwait’s Criminal Court, on its State Security Circuit, handed down historic verdicts in a widely-publicized national security case involving the death sentence of 3 accused.
The court sentenced five other defendants to five years in prison for being part of a treacherous plot that included foreign, their association with a lebanese organization, and a plot to assassinate Kuwait’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior.
The court, under the leadership of Judge Nasser Al-Badr and a panel of renowned judges, sentenced the three death row defendants: Hussein Abdullah Al-Matouq, Hassan Abdulhadi Hajieh and Abdulreza Haidar Dehqani.
It read in the court session that, as per 18 volumes of case documents presented during the proceedings, the accused had conspired to undermine national interests.
They had been proven to have had links with foreign intelligence agency operatives, connected to illegal external extremist networks and planned terror attacks against the homeland, among which was an assassination attempt on a senior official.
Co-conspirators met in secret to plan out the assassination attempt and split the number of operatives responsibilities, prosecutors disclosed.
More charges allege that operatives negotiated the purchase and smuggling of explosives into the country to induce panic, breakdown law and order, and circumvent the security mechanisms of the state.
The court noted that the actions were concerted to “deliberately sow discord in the body politic to undermine confidence in government.”
In making its harsh ruling, the court told the authorities that matters of security and sovereignty are overarching interests that can never be compromised, whether by individuals or groups.
“Kuwait will strongly oppose any foreign influence, advice or the commission of (hostile) actions by any party, whether they are institutions, persons, or even the lands, against our institutions, officials and territory,” it said.