KUWAIT CITY: A Kuwaiti appeals court on Monday overturned a six-month jail term on a leading writer and ordered the release of a top liberal activist who spent 10 days in prison, legal sources said.
Mohammed Abdulqader Al-Jassem, the writer, and the secretary general of the liberal National Democratic Alliance, Khaled Al-Fadhalah, were tried in lawsuits filed separately by Prime Minister Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.
On April 1, a lower court sentenced Jassem to six months in jail and ordered him to pay a $17,500 fine for allegedly slandering Sheikh Nasser. The prison term was suspended on payment of $17,500 pending the appeal.
Jassem was charged with making offensive remarks about Sheikh Nasser, a nephew of Kuwait’s emir and senior member of the ruling Al-Sabah family, at a small public gathering in October.
He allegedly criticised the premier’s management of the oil-rich Gulf state and called on him to quit.
Jassem, also a journalist and lawyer, still faces five similar lawsuits for criticizing the prime minister, three of them filed by the premier himself and two others by the information ministry.
In May, he was arrested and detained for 49 days on state security charges that he had undermined the status of the emir and harmed national interests. His next hearing is set for September 20.
Fadhalah was sentenced to three months in jail on June 30 by the lower court for allegedly accusing the prime minister at a public rally in December of collaborating with others in money laundering.
The appeals court overturned the prison sentence against Fadhalah, who was arrested two days after the initial ruling.
