Kuwait grills ex-MPs over Hezbollah ceremony

Kuwait: Kuwait's prosecutor questioned two Shiite former lawmakers, a lawyer said on Tuesday, over their participation in a ceremony that has highlighted sectarian tensions in the country.

Adnan Abdul Samad and Ahmad Lari were among prominent Shiite figures who angered the government for taking part in a memorial ceremony for Emad Mughnieh, a leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, who was assassinated last month in Syria.

The questioning was made possible after the two men lost their parliamentary immunity earlier this month when the emir dissolved parliament following the government's resignation and called for new elections.

The prosecutor earlier this month asked parliament to lift the immunity of the two politicians. "They are being questioned by the prosecution," attorney Abdul Karim Haidar said, without giving further details.

Kuwait, where one in every three nationals is Shiite, has accused Mughnieh of involvement in the hijacking of a Kuwait Airways plane in 1988 and the killing of two passengers.

Interior Minister Shaikh Jaber Khalid Al Sabah and four lawyers filed a lawsuit last month against the two MPs after the ceremony.

Before the dissolution, Abdul Samad has said he may seek to question Shaikh Jaber over the arrest of Shiites for holding the memorial.

Abdul Samad said then that the minister was accusing him and his colleague of belonging to a Hezbollah-style Kuwaiti group accused of trying to destabilise the country.

Several other prominent Shiites were also questioned after the ceremony.

Mughnieh was wanted by the United States and Israel for his role in a string of kidnappings, hijackings and attacks targets that killed hundreds in the 1980s and early 1990s.