KUWAIT CITY, Feb 23: The Court of Cassation presided over by Judge Ahmad Al-Ajeel has commuted death sentence by hanging to life imprisonment for two security operatives affiliated to Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense respectively who were accused of kidnapping and raping a Kuwaiti woman in a desert area.

According to the case file, the victim reported the incident at a police station, explaining that she was driving when a traffic patrol ordered her to pull over and demanded for identification. After claiming she was wanted at the Civil Execution Department over a financial crime, she was handed over to a policeman and another person.

They later approached her for an agreement to let her off the hook if she agreed to follow them to an apartment. She pretended to agree to the proposal and the policeman returned her civil ID card to her and said, “You are now free, so let us go to the apartment”.

She requested to use the toilet and he allowed her to go but she escaped and started running on the main road, where she boarded a taxi. When the partner of the policeman realized she had escaped, he chased her on his 4WD vehicle and forced the taxi driver to pull over and pull her into the jeep. He and the policeman then took her to a desert area in Firdous area where they raped her and then abandoned her in front of Firdous Cooperative Society.

Jail term overturned: The Court of Appeals nullified the verdict of the Court of First Instance, which sentenced a citizen and another person to two years in prison with hard labor. The higher court acquitted the citizen of possession and consuming drugs as well as resisting police along the Fourth Ring Road. According to the case file, the arresting officer was plying through the Fourth Ring Road when he noticed the suspect who was driving recklessly without minding the road lane demarcations, so he ordered the motorist to pull over. The officer demanded for the identification documents of the two men in the car, but they failed to present any document. They were ordered to alight for security check and it was in the process that the officer found a suspicious bag on the seat. This prompted the other man to flee from the scene, but the officer caught him and referred both of them to the prosecution. However, Attorney Jassem Al-Tuwaitan, who represented the citizen in court, argued that the procedures leading to the arrest and search of his client were faulty, while his denied two charges filed against him. He also pointed out inconsistencies in the statements of police officers including the officer who arrested his client.

Verdict overturned: The Family Court Circuit of the Court of Cassation overturned the verdict issued by the Court of Appeals, which obliged a Kuwaiti woman to return the advance payment of her dowry worth KD 6 thousand to her ex-husband. The court instead rejected the appeal and upheld the verdict issued by the Court of First Instance which issued irrevocable divorce due to damages, in addition to her maintaining all the marriage and divorce rights. According to the case file, the woman’s ex-husband accused her of marital disobedience, given that she left the house and travelled without his permission, and she refused to return to her matrimonial home despite friendly request by her husband, which prompted him to file the case against her. Representing the ex-wife was Lawyer Abdul Mohsen Al-Qattan who said the reasons presented by the prosecution were not enough to convince the court in favor of the plaintiff, given that everything that was presented had rendered the wife to be the one in error. The actual cause of her actions related to her marriage to the plaintiff were overlooked by the Court of Appeals.

By Jaber Al-Hamoud Al-Seyassah Staff