SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The European Union slammed Kuwaiti authorities after they conducted the first death penalty since 2017 on Wednesday, punishing seven convicts to death over murder and other crimes.
Three Kuwaiti men and one woman, a Syrian man, a Pakistani man, and an Ethiopian woman were executed at the Gulf Arab state’s Central Prison, the Public Prosecution said in a statement posted on Twitter.
The implementation of the execution drew criticism from the European Commission which said that Kuwait’s envoy to the EU in Brussels had been summoned.
“It is regrettable that despite raising this yesterday and having received assurances to the contrary, Kuwait went ahead with 7 executions today,” Margaritis Schinas, European Commission vice president for promoting the European way of life, said in a statement on Twitter.
Schinas said the European Union strongly opposes the death penalty and that the EU’s diplomatic service has summoned Kuwait’s ambassador to the EU in Brussels.
Schinas added the executions would be raised in discussions on the Commission’s proposal to put Kuwait on the visa-free list.
However, the state news agency (KUNA) Thursday quoted Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Salem Abdullah al-Sabah as saying “We reject any interference from anyone and especially our friends in Kuwait’s internal affairs or judicial process.”
“The decisions of our judicial apparatus are independent without any interference from inside or outside Kuwait,” the Minister added.
Kuwait’s Public Prosecution said murder warranted the “strongest punishment of execution” which also acts as a “deterrent” to others.
In January 2017, Kuwait hanged a prince in the ruling Al-Sabah family for premeditated murder alongside six other prisoners, in what appeared to be the first execution of a member of the royal family in the Gulf Arab state.
Those executions had been the first in Kuwait since 2013.
