Shiite MP accuses minister of arbitrary crackdown

Kuwait: A veteran Shiite lawmaker says he may seek to question Kuwait's Interior Minister over the arrest of Shiites in the mainly Sunni state for holding a memorial for a slain leader of Hezbollah.

The ceremony commemorating the killing of Emad Moughnieh in Damascus last month fuelled sectarian tension in Kuwait, where Shiites account for some 30 per cent of nationals.

The Cabinet has accused Moughnieh, a senior security leader in Hezbollah, of involvement in the hijacking of a Kuwait Airways plane in 1988 and the killing of two Kuwaiti passengers.

Several Shiites, including former MP Nasser Sharkhouh and municipal council member Fadhel Safar, are being interrogated by the public prosecution over the ceremony, which drew hundreds of people. An arrest warrant has also been issued for politician and former parliamentarian Abdul Mohsen Jamal.

Shiite MP Saeed Adnan Abdul Samad, who may also face questioning, said Interior Minister Shaikh Jaber Khalid Al Sabah was taking "arbitrary measures" against public figures.

He told Reuters in a telephone interview that he may submit an official request to question the Interior Minister or the Prime Minister in parliament if the situation continued.

"They are continuing to arrest religious figures and former MPs ... It is now a political issue ... There are parties that are asking us to settle down but the measures being taken are contrary to this," Abdul Samad said.

He said Shiites condemned the airline hijacking, but added: "There isn't anything official or governmental that links Moughnieh [to the hijacking]".

Moughnieh had been wanted by the United States and Israel for his role in a string of kidnappings, hijackings and attacks against Western and Israeli targets that killed hundreds in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Deporting expats

Al Watan newspaper reported this week that Shaikh Jaber had threatened to deport expatriates who attended the memorial.

The minister and four lawyers also filed a lawsuit against Abdul Samad and fellow Shiite lawmaker Ahmad Lari last month for joining the so-called 'Hezbollah Kuwait', a group the government accuses of trying to destabilise Kuwait.

The Popular Action Bloc, a broadly Islamist parliamentary grouping to which both Abdul Samad and Lari belonged, has already expelled them for participating in the memorial.

Abdul Samad said all those being interrogated had been accused of joining a so-called 'Hezbollah Kuwait'.