Cairo: Kuwaiti police have started applying the use of pepper spray against outlaws and in self-defence after recent assaults on security personnel, a local newspaper has reported.
The Interior Ministry has allowed police to use the pepper spray according to certain regulations to handle wanted criminals and in self-defence, Al Rai quoted security sources as saying.
“The ministry is keen on its personnel’s safely while dealing with wanted offenders, who posed a danger to people and properties,” the sources said.
The use of mace, they added, will largely help deter the wanted offenders, who refuse to comply with police’s instructions after recent attacks on several security men.
Rules for the pepper spray include avoidance of its excessive use and in cases of self-defence against outlaws, the sources said.
“On dealing with a suspect or a person acting in a way disrupting public security, putting his life or those of others in danger, such a person will be warned that the pepper spray will be used against him to give him a chance to comply with instructions and turn himself in,” the sources explained.
In recent months, Kuwait has witnessed a string of attacks on police personnel.
Last year, a Kuwaiti motorist briefly abducted a policeman when he attempted to stop him.
Ensuing investigations showed that the offender was a drug taker and had in his possession a bag containing a narcotic substance.
In September, a Kuwaiti man was arrested after he had stabbed two policemen with a knife as they were trying to restrain him from attacking his parents in the town of Jaber Al Ahmad, west of Kuwait City.
In June, a young Syrian man, fleeing after killing his mother, fatally stabbed a traffic policeman in the area of Al Mahboula in Kuwait’s governorate of Al Ahmadi.
Dubbed in the local media the Mahboula crime, the murder shook Kuwait and triggered calls for tougher enforcement of law and more protection for police.
