Kuwait executes man over role in 2015 mosque suicide bombing

KUWAIT: Kuwait on Thursday executed a man convicted over involvement in a suicide attack that killed 27 worshippers in a mosque in 2015, prosecutors said.

Authorities did not specify his role in the attack, though they previously said they had arrested the suicide bomber's driver.

The man, a bedoun - or member of Kuwait's stateless community - was one of five people executed in the Gulf state on Thursday.

The others, who including an Egyptian and a Sri Lankan, were found guilty of various charges, the public prosecutor's office said in a statement on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The bedoun man was found guilty of murder and of membership of Islamic State, the prosecutor's office said.

The jihadist group claimed responsibility for the 2015 attack, which took place inside a packed Shi’ite Muslim mosque in Kuwait city during Friday prayers.

It was the first bombing of its kind in the major oil-exporting state. Authorities identified the suicide bomber as a Saudi Arabian man.

Thursday's executions are likely to refocus attention on the human rights records of Kuwait and other Gulf Arab states, where the death penalty is also applied to punish political and religious dissidents.