THE UNFORGETTABLE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN KUWAIT THAT LEFT EVERYONE IN SHOCK IN 1964 TO DATE

  Capital punishment in Kuwait 1964 to date.

Kuwait is a small monarchy in the Middle East, with a population of around four million people, headed by the Amir who governs with a Council of Ministers. It gained independence from Britain on the 19th of June 1961 and approved its constitution on the 11th of November 1962.

The Kuwaiti judicial system is based on the Egyptian model, being a mixture of Islamic Sharia law, English common law, and the Ottoman civil code. It retains capital punishment, using a modified form of British style hanging and has carried out 88 executions (80 men and eight women) between April 1964 and November 2022. There were no executions between May 2007 and March 2013, although a small number of new death sentences have been handed down.  After nearly six years, executions resumed on the 1st of April 2013, when three murderers were hanged.  A further seven hangings were carried out on the morning of Wednesday the 25th of January 2017 and another seven on Wednesday the 16th of November 2022.

Kuwaiti law does not allow the execution of the insane or persons under 18 years of age. Capital cases are automatically reviewed by the Court of Appeal, and if upheld, are referred to the Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court, before being sent to the Amir for ratification. Once they have been approved by the Amir, an execution order is issued by the chief justice and passed to the prosecutor general.

Since1969, terrorist and treason trials have been tried before the State Security Court.

On the 25th of April 1995, the National Assembly passed a Law on the Combat of Drugs which extended the use of the death penalty for several drug related crimes.

Up to 1985, hangings were carried out in public at the Nayef Palace Square and after that within Central Prison.  The gallows there was probably built by the British and only had capacity for one prisoner at a time.  A British style noose was used with a brass eyelet and leather covered rope. A measured drop was given and executions were carried out at 8.00 a.m.

There were no executions in the Kingdom between August 1989 and May 1993. Since the 30th of June 2002, executions have again been carried out at the Nayef Palace, pictured here, but in semi-private. After a hanging, the public and press have been allowed to see the dangling bodies. 

Press photographers film the aftermath and the pictures are published in the hope that this will prove to be a greater deterrent. New steel gallows have been constructed, each with a double leaf trap for a single prisoner. The platforms are reached by a flight of steps. Underneath the platform there are steel step ups for use by the medical and execution staff to attend the prisoner after the execution.

At least since 1988, male prisoners have been dressed in a white T-shirt and brown tunic and trousers.  The arms and legs are pinioned with leather straps and the head covered by a black hood. The execution team wear black boiler suits and black ski masks to conceal their identities. Condemned prisoners are kept in solitary confinement and are allowed to see their relatives prior to their deaths.

When Ayub Shah and Othman Ghani Mehrab Khan were hanged on the 11th of January 2005, there were pictures published showing the head of one of them being torn off by the force of the drop. 

This would not be a unique occurrence in the history of hanging, and may have been due to a miscalculation of the length of the drop or to the prisoner having a weak neck.

Eight women have been executed in Kuwait since independence. They were Indians, Alice Norban Barissi and Farida Taher Sheeh, who were hanged on the 11th of September 1988 for drowning their male victim in his bathtub and robbing him.  24 year old Indian maid, Qadeer Kaleeja, who had been convicted of strangling her 80 year old Kuwaiti employer, Aisha Al Fadalah, in her bed in 1999 and then stealing her money and jewellery. 

 Kaleeja telephoned the victim's sons to inform them of their mother's death by "natural causes," but police called to the scene grew suspicious of scratches on the maid's face and arrested her.  She was hanged in private on the 17th of June 2001.

On Wednesday the 25th of January 2017, three women were hanged.  They were 30 year old Nasra Yussef Mohammed al-Enezi (also given as Nusra), Jakatia Mandon Pawa, and Omkel Oku Mekonnen.  

Nusra al-Enezi was the first Kuwaiti woman ever to be executed.  She was convicted of the murder by arson of 57 women and children who were in a tent, set up to celebrate a wedding in Jahra. She was sentenced to death on Tuesday the 30th of March 2010, by Judge Adel al-Sager and her sentence upheld by the Appeal Court and the Court of Cassation. 

 Jakatia Mandon Pawa a 42 year old Filipina woman was convicted in 2008 of killing her employer's daughter.  Omkel Oku Mekonnen, an Ethiopian for whom no age has been given, murdered the daughter of her Lebanese employer in Hawalli in 2008.  

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