{"id":169819,"date":"2018-07-08T07:04:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-08T11:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=169819"},"modified":"2018-07-08T07:04:51","modified_gmt":"2018-07-08T11:04:51","slug":"kuwaits-highest-court-sentences-lawmakers-to-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/07\/08\/kuwaits-highest-court-sentences-lawmakers-to-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Kuwait’s highest court sentences lawmakers to prison"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The case before Kuwait’s Court of Cassation involved dozens of politicians, activists and others. The defendants were initially acquitted in the yearslong case, but a shock court decision in November resurrected the charges against them. (Pixabay photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait’s highest court on Sunday ordered an opposition leader and several lawmakers imprisoned for 3 1\/2 years over the 2011 storming of parliament during the country’s Arab Spring protests.<\/p>\n

The case before Kuwait’s Court of Cassation involved dozens of politicians, activists and others. The defendants were initially acquitted in the yearslong case, but a shock court decision in November resurrected the charges against them.<\/p>\n

Among those sentenced Sunday was Musallam al-Barrack, an opposition leader who left prison in April 2017 after serving a two-year sentence on separate charges. Sitting and former lawmakers also were sentenced to prison. The case involved a total of 70 defendants.<\/p>\n

Al-Barrack had left Kuwait before the sentencing. He could not be immediately reached for comment.<\/p>\n

As Arab Spring protests convulsed the region in 2011, Kuwait’s ruling emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, ordered 1,000 dinar ($3,559) grants and free food coupons for every Kuwaiti. That came on top of Kuwait’s cradle-to-grave entitlements for it citizens, which the OPEC member is able to afford because it holds the world’s sixth-largest known oil reserves — despite being smaller than the U.S. state of New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Allegations swirled at the time that some lawmakers had been bribed $350 million by the government to sway their votes, along with rumours that they were involved in embezzling state funds. Kuwait’s then-Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al Sabah, Sheikh Sabah’s nephew, who also faced allegations, survived a no-confidence vote.<\/p>\n

Amid strikes and confrontations with police, protesters briefly entered parliament on Nov. 16, 2011, waving flags and singing the country’s national anthem.<\/p>\n

The activists were initially charged after the storming of the parliament but a lower court in 2013 ruled they had no criminal intent during the incident. However, a surprise appeals court ruling last November sentenced dozens of defendants to prison terms of as much as nine years.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait’s highest court on Sunday ordered an opposition leader and several lawmakers imprisoned for 3 1\/2 years …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":153673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[29876,52899,4326,52900],"class_list":["post-169819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","tag-arab-spring","tag-court-of-cassation","tag-kuwait","tag-musallam-al-barrack","mauthors-hussain-al-qatari","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}