KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait: Kuwait’s supreme court yesterday upheld life terms on two Iranians, a Kuwaiti and a stateless on charges of forming a ring to spy for neighbouring Iran.
The court, whose rulings are final, also upheld the acquittal of two Iranians, including the only woman in the ring, and a Syrian, a statement issued by the court said.
“The court rejects the appeals of the defendants and upholds the (court of appeals) sentences,” judge Abdullah Al Jassem said in the statement.
In May last year, the appeals court reduced death sentences against the first three to life and upheld the same term on the fourth. The court also acquitted the Syrian who was sentenced to life by the lower court.
Libya court delays Lockerbie verdict
TRIPOLI: A Libyan court yesterday postponed its verdict in the case of two officials from ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s regime accused of “financial crimes” connected to compensation for the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing.
Abdelati Al Obeidi, a former foreign minister, and Mohammed Belgassem Al Zwai, ex-speaker of parliament, were accused of mismanaging public funds in compensating families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing, according to charges read by the judge.
The criminal court in Tripoli postponed the verdict until June 17 “to allow more time to study the file,” the judge said.
At a hearing in September, the jailed pair pleaded not guilty to the charges. Their lawyer argued that they had not made any personal gain and had negotiated on behalf of the authorities.
One dead in Cairo street gun battle
CAIRO: A passerby who was wounded in a firefight between Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil’s bodyguards and a group of “thugs” died of his injuries yesterday, a security official said.
The man, a street vendor, was shot in the neck on Sunday night when a group of people driving a pick up traded fire with Qandil’s bodyguards who were travelling in a convoy with him. Qandil was not hurt.
His bodyguards opened fire at the truck carrying five people that had cut into Qandil’s convoy as it crossed Cairo’s October 6 bridge across the Nile. Shots were returned from the pick up truck before the driver and the passengers were arrested.
Syrian beheaded
in Saudi Arabia
RIYADH: Saudi authorities beheaded a Syrian man yesterday after he was convicted of drug trafficking, the Interior Ministry said.
Mohammed Khalaf was arrested “as he was smuggling a large amount of narcotic pills into the kingdom,” the ministry said in a statement published by the official SPA news agency.
He was beheaded by the sword in the northern Jawf province. His beheading brings to 36 the number of people executed in Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the year, according to a tally. Agencies
