7 ISIS members sentenced to death for Kuwait mosque bombing
Hussain Al-Qatari, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Tuesday, September 15, 2015 12:29 PM EDT | Updated: Tuesday, September 15, 2015 12:43 PM EDT
Kuwait Special Forces control the area around the Shiite Imam Sadiq Mosque in Al Sawaber area of Kuwait City, June 26, 2015, after a bomb explosion killed 27 worshippers during Friday prayers. REUTERS/Jassim Mohammed
KUWAIT CITY -- A Kuwaiti court sentenced seven people to death Tuesday over an Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in the capital that killed 27 people in June, state media reported.
Another eight defendants received prison terms ranging from two to 15 years, while another 14 were acquitted by Judge Mohammad Al-Duaij in his verdict, the state-run KUNA news agency reported.
Defence lawyers for those convicted could not be immediately reached for comment. Typically, those sentenced to death can appeal.
The June 26 bombing during Friday prayers inside one of Kuwait's oldest Shiite mosques, carried out by a Saudi citizen identified as Fahad Suleiman Abdulmohsen al-Gabbaa, shocked the normally peaceful oil-rich nation. The blast at the Imam Sadiq Mosque, which also wounded 227 people, was the first major terrorist attack in Kuwait in more than two decades.
After the blast, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack. The Sunni extremists, who hold a third of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in their self-declared "caliphate," view Shiite Muslims as heretics and have attacked their mosques in other countries across the Mideast.
Executions remain rare in Kuwait, though it hanged five convicted criminals in 2013, according to Amnesty International. Kuwait carried out no executions in 2014, according to Amnesty.
For decades, Kuwait has been among the safest and quietest corners of the Middle East, with Sunni and Shiite Muslims living alongside each other in relative peace. It suffered an invasion under former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, but traditionally has not faced extremist attacks.
The last massive attack here was in 1983, when Iranian-backed Shiite militants from Iraq carried out bombings that killed at least five people and targeted Western embassies.
