Kuwait: Expat engineer gets 5 years in jail for touting Daesh

Cairo: A Kuwaiti court has sentenced an expatriate to five years in prison and deportation after serving the term after convicting him of promoting the ideology of the terrorist Daesh (ISIS) organisation.

The verdict was handed down by the appeals court to the Egyptian national charged with calling for joining Daesh via videos he had posted on social media.

He had also urged minors attending mosques in the area of Al Salmiya east of Kuwait City to join the militant group.

The 30-year-old defendant worked as a civil engineer on Kuwait’s new airport project, Al Rai newspaper reported.

Daesh, which sought to set up a self-styled caliphate, has recently suffered military setbacks in Iraq and Syria where the radical militia had once seized large swathes of territory. However, the group continues to claim sporadic attacks.

In 2015, 27 people were killed in the bombing of a Shiite mosque in Kuwait claimed by Daesh. The bombing was carried out by a suicide attacker during the congregation Friday prayers in Al Sadeq mosque.

The terror attack was the first of its kind in Kuwait in more than two decades

Last July, an inmate convicted of involvement in the bombing attack was executed. He was charged with aiding the suicide bomber by driving the attacker to the mosque.

Five other defendants were tried in absentia and sentenced to death. Eight others were sentenced to 15 years in prison each in the same case.