KUWAIT CITY, March 30: A Kuwaiti woman on Tuesday was sentenced to death for intentionally starting a fire which killed 57 women and children at the wedding party of her husband who took another wife.
Judge Adel al-Sager read out the verdict against Nasra Yussef Mohammed al-Enezi, 23, at the Court of First Instance.
Death sentences in Kuwait are carried out by hanging, but it would first have to be upheld by the appeals court.
The woman who was not present in the court was found guilty of “premeditated murder and starting a fire with the intent to kill.”
Press reports at the time of the blaze said Enezi had wanted to avenge her husband’s “bad treatment” of her, but in court she denied any involvement in the incident.
Defence lawyer Zaid al-Khabbaz vowed he would prove Enezi’s innocence in the higher courts and said the verdict had been influenced by public opinion.
“The ruling was very harsh against a woman who is innocent,” Khabbaz told AFP. “It is a political judgement rather than a criminal ruling because the court came under the influence of public opinion.”
He said the public prosecution failed to “unequivocally prove that Enezi was the perpetrator. The case contained many legal loopholes.”
Khabbaz said the defence team was considering contacting international human rights organisations in a bid to save Enezi’s life.
He also said the defence team would have a better opportunity to prove her innocence in the appeals and supreme courts.
The August 15 inferno engulfed the women-and-children-only tent in minutes and triggered a stampede. The final death toll was 57, including several Saudis and stateless Arabs.
At her first hearing in October, the suspect denied the charges.
At another hearing, an Asian domestic helper testified in court that she saw Enezi pour petrol and start the fire at the wedding tent in Jahra, about 40 kms (25 miles) west of Kuwait City.
Her defence lawyers had alleged at the time of Enezi’s arrest on August 16, she was two months pregnant but that the embryo was “deliberately aborted” by a prison guard with the help of an Asian nurse.
The incident shocked the country and HH the Amir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah ordered that relatives of each victim be paid 35,000 dollars in compensation.
Enezi was initially believed to be the groom’s ex-wife but defence lawyers said she was still his wife.
Enezi and the man have two children, both of whom are mentally handicapped.
If Enezi’s sentence is upheld by higher courts, she would be the first Kuwaiti woman to be executed in the history of the country.
Another Kuwaiti woman was sentenced to death over three years ago after being convicted of drug trafficking, but her sentence was commuted to 15 years in prison.
Women from other nationalities have, however, been hanged in the past.
Kuwait has executed a total of 72 people, three of them women, since it introduced the death penalty some four decades ago. Most of the condemned have been convicted murderers or drug traffickers.
Speaking to the Arab Times after the session, the lawyers for Nasra — Zaid Al-Khabbaz and Saqqaf Al-Saqqaf — lamented that it seemed the court dismissed all the arguments they presented in previous hearings but they will not relent in their efforts to prove that their client is innocent at the Court of Appeals.
During interrogations at the Criminal Investigation Department and Public Prosecution, Nasra told the investigators that she lost her mind when she found out her husband’s plan to marry another woman.  She later threatened him but he did not respond and pressed ahead with his wedding plans.
On the day of the wedding, she is alleged to have taken a taxi from her family’s house in Rabia, gone to a petrol station where she bought some petrol and headed to the wedding tent. She is said to have poured petrol on the edges of the tent, set fire to it and hurried back to the taxi, which took her back to her family’s house. However, she denied the charges when she appeared in court.