Execution of Five Individuals in Kuwait; Suspect of Attack on Shia Mosque Hanged

Kuwait announced on Thursday that it has executed five prisoners, including a suspect in the bombing of a Shia mosque in 2015. The bombing, for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility, resulted in the deaths of 27 people. According to a statement from the Kuwaiti prosecutor's office, the five included 'one attacker on the mosque, three convicted murderers, and one drug trafficker.' The 2015 bombing occurred during Friday prayers at one of the oldest Shia mosques in Kuwait. The Islamic State considers Shia Muslims to be heretics. This attack shocked Kuwait and was the first militant attack in the country in over two decades. The last mass execution in this small oil-rich country was in November 2022, when seven prisoners were executed. Executions in Kuwait, which has the sixth-largest oil reserves in the world, are relatively rare. The last execution before 2017 took place in 2013, when a Pakistani, a Saudi, and a non-Kuwaiti migrant were hanged. Two death sentences were revoked and halted; concerns regarding the execution of Mohammad Javad Vafaee Sani, a boxing champion and protester from the November 2019 protests, persist despite the insistence of the Mashhad Revolutionary Court, which upheld the death sentence against him despite the Supreme Court's arguments; another lawyer is on the way to prison; the one-year sentence for Mohammad Seyfzadeh has been finalized.