Kuwait’s Criminal Court on Monday sentenced three men to death on charges of spying for Iran, joining Hezbollah, and plotting to assassinate Interior Minister Fahad Al-Yousef.
Hussein Abdullah al-Maatouq, a Shiite cleric, was sentenced to death along with Hassan Abdulhadi Hajieh and Abdulreza Haidar Dehqani, an Iranian national.
Shiites make up about one-third of the population in Kuwait, but a majority population in Iraq, Bahrain and Iran. Since the start of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran on Feb. 28, several Gulf countries, including Kuwait, have arrested dozens of suspected “Iranian spies and saboteurs,” most of whom are Shiite, exacerbating sectarian tensions as the region teeters on the brink of renewed conflict.
Kuwaiti authorities had earlier announced the dismantling of networks they said were linked to Hezbollah and planning to target facilities and individuals inside the country. Kuwait, like the United States, designates Lebanon-based Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Eight other defendants were sentenced to five years in prison each in the case, which involved allegations of espionage and plots to assassinate other Kuwaiti government figures.
Al-Maatouq previously served as secretary-general of the National Islamic Alliance, Kuwait’s main Shiite political bloc. He studied in the Iranian city of Qom, home to the largest Shiite seminary in the world, before founding the Imam Hassan al-Mujtaba Seminary in Kuwait.
He was previously convicted in a separate case for harboring suspects linked to the so-called Abdali Cell, which Kuwaiti authorities said they uncovered in 2015 after seizing weapons, ammunition and explosives near the Iraqi border. Both Hajieh and Dehqani were tried and sentenced to death in 2016 for that, with Dehqani tried and sentenced in absentia.
In December 2019, Kuwait’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, upheld a five-year prison sentence against al-Maatouq, but he later received amnesty from the emir in 2021.
Mohammed al-Matar, director of the Jusoor Center for Studies, said the harsh sentences could reinforce a sense among members of Kuwait’s Shiite community that they were being targeted. He warned of possible repercussions for relations between Sunnis and Shiites in the country.
Al-Matar told MBN that Kuwait has worked since the Gulf War to rebuild relations between the two communities after tensions sharpened during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. The government’s detention of political and religious figures and prosecution of businesspeople could damage social cohesion if the measures were perceived as targeting Shiites, he said.
In August, Amnesty International criticized Kuwait’s new counterterrorism legislation, adopted after the war with Iran began, warning that its broad and ambiguous definitions of terrorist acts could threaten freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association and movement, while expanding the range of offenses punishable by death.
Yahya Al-Hadid, head of the Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, warned that the link between judicial actions and regional tensions raised questions about whether security cases were being politicized.
Suspecting Shiite citizens solely because of regional conflict, Al-Hadid told MBN, could undermine Kuwait’s relatively positive reputation, at least among Gulf states, for protecting principles of equal citizenship and freedoms.
Concerns over human rights in Kuwait have paralleled increased security measures in Bahrain since the outbreak of the Iran war. Bahraini officials have arrested people for social media posts and positions related to the war, restricted some Shiite religious practices, and revoked the citizenship of 69 people of Iranian Shiite origin, including children, according to Human Rights Watch and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.
Human rights organizations accuse Bahraini authorities of discriminating against Shiites and persecuting clerics, activists and opposition figures from the community, particularly since the 2011 protests calling for political reforms in the island kingdom.
Al-Matar praised al-Maatouq’s role “in mediation efforts during Bahrain’s 2011 protests, at the request of Kuwait’s late emir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad,” thanks to the cleric’s relationships in Kuwait, Iran and Iraq.
“Making use of those relationships would have better served Kuwait’s interests amid the current regional confrontation than escalating tensions with religious figures who have ties beyond the country,” al-Matar said.
Kuwaiti lawyer Saud al-Subaie, a former adviser to the speaker of the National Assembly and former deputy head of the Lawyers Admission Committee, said the Criminal Court’s rulings in the case could be appealed. The Court of Appeal could uphold, amend or overturn them.
Al-Matar questioned whether the public had sufficient details of the case, saying transparency about the proceedings and the grounds for the sentences was essential to strengthening confidence in Kuwait’s judiciary.
The Gulf Institute’s Al-Hadid, meanwhile, said he was concerned over whether the defendants had access to their lawyers, whether proceedings were public, and the circumstances surrounding investigations and any confessions used in the cases. He called for the protection of defense guarantees in line with international human rights conventions.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
