Kuwait drops case against Pentagon hacker
28-year-old man defendant was earlier accused of hacking 200 US websites
Cairo: Kuwait’s top court has upheld an earlier court ruling dropping a lawsuit against a young Kuwaiti accused of hacking dozens of US websites including the Pentagon’s.
The Court of Cassation confirmed the verdict dropping the case against the 28-year-old man, reported Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas that described him as the “most dangerous Kuwaiti hacker”.
He had been accused of hacking 200 secret US government sites including that of the Department of Defence, displaying classified information and seizing money, it added.
The court ruled the case dropped, saying it is unlawful to try the defendant more than 10 years after the incident.
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The defendant had faced criminal charges including hacking the Pentagon website, having access to sensitive weaponry locations and releasing the information in 2011.
In October last year, a Kuwaiti criminal court dropped the case against the man on the grounds that he could not be tried for acts made over the years from 2010 to 2012. The court had also dropped charges of jeopardising Kuwait’s relations with potential severance after his hacking of the Pentagon website.
Prosecutors had earlier charged the then teenager with hacking more than 200 websites some containing classified information as well as fraud after he had obtained money by means of swindle through touting his own website to lure fees from victims.
Last September, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported that a hacker had targeted the Kuwaiti Finance Ministry and displayed data he had obtained from a website linked to the ministry.
According to the report, the hacker gave the ministry seven days to pay a ransom of 15 bitcoins (around $400,000) to retrieve the allegedly exclusive data or he would sell them to others.