(MENAFN- Arab Times) Kuwait's supreme court Monday upheld a death sentence for a member of the Gulf state's ruling family convicted of killing his nephew, also a royal, according to the verdict. Sheikh Faisal Abdullah Al-Sabah was convicted of shooting Sheikh Basel Salem Al-Sabah to death at the latter's palace in June 2010, apparently over a dispute on board membership at a sports club.
The sentence is final but can be commuted to life in jail by the Amir of Kuwait where executions are carried out by hanging. Sheikh Basel was the grandson of the late former Amir Sheikh Sabah Salem Al-Sabah and the son of late minister of defence and interior Sheikh Salem Al-Sabah. Courts in Kuwait, which has an elected parliament and a vibrant political life, have in the past handed down death sentences to members of the Al-Sabah ruling family. Kuwait resumed executions earlier this year after a moratorium since 2007. Around 50 prisoners are currently on death row.
Meanwhile, Kuwait's supreme court upheld Monday a death sentence against a woman for murdering her Filipina maid after torturing her, and confirmed a 10- year sentence on her disabled husband. The ruling is final and cannot be challenged but could be commuted to a life term. Executions in Kuwait are carried out by hanging. The Kuwaiti woman was convicted of premeditated murder based on evidence that she had regularly tortured her maid before driving over her in a remote desert area. The husband was handed the jail term for "assisting her," according to a copy of the ruling. The couple were both sentenced to death by the lower court in February last year. Three months later, the appeals court upheld the death penalty against the woman but commuted the sentence against her husband to 10 years in jail. According to the ruling, the woman beat her maid for several days until her health deteriorated. The couple then took the maid "unconscious" to a remote area in the desert where they threw her from the back seat of the car and then drove over her until she died. More than 100,000 Filipinos, many of them women working as maids, live in Kuwait, where some 600,000 domestic helpers, mostly Asians, are employed.
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