KUWAIT CITY —
Kuwait put seven people to death for murder on Wednesday, the public
prosecutions service said, the first executions since 2017.
اضافة اعلان
One Ethiopian
woman and one Kuwaiti woman were among those hanged, along with three Kuwaiti
men, a Syrian, and a Pakistani, a statement said.
The executions are
the first since January 25, 2017, when the oil-rich Gulf country also hanged a
group of seven people, including one member of the royal family.
They coincided
with a visit by European Commission vice president Margaritis Schinas, and the
EU said it was summoning Kuwait’s ambassador in response.
“The EU calls for
a halt to executions and for a complete de facto moratorium on carrying out the
death penalty, as a first step towards a formal and full abolition of the death
penalty in Kuwait,” the bloc said in a statement.
Capital punishment
is widespread in the region, particularly in Iran and
Saudi Arabia, where 81
people were executed in a single day in March, drawing international
condemnation.
Kuwait has
executed dozens of people since it introduced the death penalty in the
mid-1960s. Most of those condemned have been murderers or drug traffickers.
In April 2013,
Kuwaiti authorities hanged three men convicted of murder. Two months later, two
Egyptians, convicted of murder and abduction, were executed.
The executions in
Kuwait come less than a week after Saudi Arabia said it had executed two
Pakistanis for smuggling heroin, ending a nearly three-year hiatus in
executions for drug offences.
Since then, there
have been six more executions for drug offences, including two Saudis put to
death on Tuesday and a Jordanian on Wednesday.
So far, 136
executions have been carried out this year in the kingdom, nearly double last
year’s total of 69, according to an AFP tally.
Saudi Arabia
executed 27 people in 2020 and 187 in 2019.
In January 2021,
the kingdom’s human rights commission announced a moratorium on administering
the death penalty for drug crimes.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
