KUWAIT CITY, July 18: The Court of Appeals presided over by Judge Nasr Al-Hayad overruled the verdict issued by the Criminal Court which sentenced a Lebanese presenter working for Kuwait TV to one-year imprisonment with hard labor on charges of committing blasphemy during a TV program.

The court instead acquitted her as well as the director and crew of the TV program in question. In its closing statement, the court explained that the defendant did not utter any words that can be deemed as blasphemous, and she did not harbor any intention to offend God.

Instead, her words were based on the Christian perspective regarding the Creator, and she had since then expressed regret and apologized for what she had said during the program.

In another case, the court overruled the acquittal ruling issued to an officer of Ministry of Defense and a member of the Secretariat of the government council. The court instead refrained from issuing its verdict but ordered the accused to return KD 26,000, which is a value of the salary he received through falsification of academic certificate obtained from an Egyptian university.

By Jaber Al-Hamoud Al-Seyassah Staff and Agencies