Kuwait releases more Hezbollah suspects

Cairo: Kuwait has decided to release three more suspects in a high-profile case related to funding the pro-Iran Lebanese Hezbollah group, Kuwaiti media reported.

Public prosecution ordered the release of the three on a bail of KD5,000 each and barring them from travel abroad.

This leaves five others in detention in connection to the case.

A judge will decide on Sunday on their release, Al Anba newspaper said, quoting their release.

Last month, Kuwaiti prosecutors ordered the release of three other defendants on a bail of KD5,000 each and banned them from travel in the same case.

The case dates back to last November when Kuwait dismantled a cell suspected of having links with Hezbollah.

The arrests were made after authorities received a security report from an unspecified “sisterly” country, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Seyassah said at the time.

The suspects were questioned by the Kuwaiti State Security Service on charges including money laundry for Hezbollah and encouraging young Kuwaitis to collaborate with the Lebanese movement, carry out terror acts and smuggle drugs in Syria and Yemen.

The paper said the suspects had admitted in investigations that they had collected donations in mosques in Kuwait without approval from authorities.

The case surfaced amid a sharp diplomatic crisis between the Gulf countries, including Kuwait, with Lebanon after its then information minister George Kurdahi had made remarks supporting Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels. Kurdahi resigned in December amid efforts to defuse the crisis.

Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Ahmed Naser Al Sabah visited Lebanon last month, becoming the first Gulf official to make such a visit since the diplomatic row erupted.