 | This is almost as bad as the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals ... |
KUWAIT CITY - KuwaitÂ’s appeals court acquitted four Islamists on Sunday of charges of recruiting anti-US fighters for Iraq and referred the cases of 18 others to two other courts, a lawyer said.
In May last year, the lower court sentenced 18 of them to three years in jail and fined four others. The group included four minors. But the appeals court found four of the group not guilty, returned the cases of four others to the lower court for reconsideration and sent the cases of the remaining 14 to the constitutional court, defence lawyer Osama Al Munawer said.
| Where they'll be conveniently forgotten ... |
The constitutional court was asked to review a clause in the penal code that deals with conspiracy charges which is suspected of contravening the constitution. The constitutional court is to decide whether the conspiracy to commit a criminal act outlined in article 56 of the penal code applied to the 14 defendants in this case.
| That tells us nothing as it tells us everything ... |
Last month, a Kuwaiti judge trying 36 Islamists suspected of fighting gunbattles with the police in January 2005, referred that case to the constitutional court on similar grounds. The 22 men were accused of involvement in “aggressive actions against a friendly nation, raising funds for Islamist militants engaged in fighting against US forces in Iraq and possessing illegal weapons.”
The men were arrested in a police crackdown in July 2004 after Syria extradited four Kuwaitis, two of them detained as they left Iraq and two captured as they attempted to slip into the country. |