Kuwait Lifts Death Sentences Against 29

Bowing to international pressure, Kuwait’s crown prince said Wednesday that he has commuted the death sentences of all 29 people convicted of collaborating with the Iraqi occupation, the official news agency reported.

Kuwaiti defense lawyers and human rights activists rejoiced at the news that the sentences have been reduced to life imprisonment. Several said the move will ease tensions with the West and boost the international stature of the crown prince, Sheik Saad al Abdullah al Sabah, although it could cost him politically at home.

“That’s very, very good news,” said attorney Emad Saif, who is defending scores of accused collaborators, including several on death row.

“I think all the Kuwaiti people will feel mad about it,” Saif said. “The majority of Kuwaitis would like to see these people dead. . . . Sheik Saad will have a very good international image, but it will damage his popularity here a bit. But they forget very quickly.”

The crown prince announced the commutations in a meeting in London with British Prime Minister John Major. The news was quickly confirmed by Kuwait’s minister of justice, Ghazi Samar, and by a spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who had called on Kuwait to show clemency on humanitarian grounds.

The commutations were Prince Saad’s last act as martial-law governor, with four months of martial-law rule ending at midnight Wednesday.

“Really? OK! You made my night!” exclaimed Ghanem Najjar, director of the Kuwaiti Assn. to Defend War Victims, upon hearing the news. The group had joined Kuwaiti defense lawyers and other prominent citizens in calling on the crown prince not to hang collaborators convicted by a martial-law tribunal whose procedures and harsh verdicts have drawn sharp international criticism.

The vast majority of those convicted have been Jordanians, Palestinians, Iraqis and stateless Arabs known as bedoun. Western human rights groups have charged that many defendants were convicted on scanty evidence, some with no witnesses against them, and that several defendants had recanted confessions they said were extracted by torture.

Although the commutations may be resented by Kuwaitis who were arrested by the Iraqis, who were tortured or who lost relatives during the seven-month occupation, Najjar said: “They will have to live with it. It doesn’t matter if they like it or not.”

Sheik Ali Salem Ali al Sabah, a former resistance leader and a nephew of the emir, predicted that any public ire will be short-lived.

“In a month’s time, everybody will forget about it,” he said. “Nobody in his right mind expected him to be chopping heads. Everybody knows that (the sentences) will be commuted in the end.”

Defense lawyers expressed hope that the crown prince’s decision will encourage leniency for about 320 other alleged collaborators who have drawn sentences of up to 25 years in prison, although there were reports Wednesday that the crown prince has confirmed those other sentences. The verdicts were to have been reviewed by a three-member judicial panel appointed to advise the crown prince. However, it was unclear Wednesday whether the crown prince’s remarks had superseded the work of the panel or if the non-death sentence verdicts would stand.

Lifting the death sentences is “a good sign,” said a relative of one defendant sentenced to 15 years in jail for working at a pro-Iraqi newspaper. “If they are suspending the death sentences, maybe all the other charges will be discussed again. We are happy for all of these people who are sentenced to death. We don’t want to act selfish.”

With the disbanding of the martial-law tribunal, at least 125 other accused collaborators will be tried either in civilian or state security courts, Kuwaiti justice officials have said. Those tried as civilians for offenses such as looting will have the right to appeal, but those tried for political offenses in security courts will not.

However, all may appeal for mercy to the emir, Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, who has reportedly never signed a death warrant for anyone convicted of a political offense.