Kuwait has hanged seven prisoners, including a member of the royal family and a woman convicted of killing more than 40 people, the first death sentences carried out in several years in the oil-rich emirate.
Those executed on Wednesday included a Bangladeshi, a Filipina, an Ethiopian, two Kuwaitis and two Egyptians, according to a statement carried on the state-run Kuna news agency.
Kuwait’s ruler, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, authorised the executions, which were carried out at the country’s central prison.
The royal was identified as Faisal Abdullah al-Jaber al-Sabah. The statement said he was convicted of premeditated murder and illegal possession of a firearm.
The second Kuwaiti national executed on Wednesday was Nasra al-Enezi. She was convicted of charges including premeditated murder and sentenced to death in 2010. She was accused of setting fire to a wedding tent the previous year after her husband took a second wife. The blaze killed more than 40 people.
In the Philippines, a foreign affairs department spokesman, Charles Jose, identified the Filipina hanged as Jakatia Pawa, who was convicted of killing her employer’s daughter.
Pawa’s brother, Gary Pawa, said his sister called early on Wednesday morning, crying as she informed him of her scheduled execution. She asked him to take care of her two children.
Ernesto Abella, a spokesman for Philippines’ president, Rodrigo Duterte, said in a statement that the authorities used “all efforts to preserve her life, including diplomatic means and appeals for compassion”.
“Execution, however, could no longer be forestalled under Kuwaiti laws,” he said. “We pray for her and her bereaved family.”
