Manama: Kuwait has referred 11 people from various nationalities to the public prosecutor for terror-related activities.
The security agency said that it had monitored the moves of the defendants and confirmed the existence of intense contact between them and the Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
The defendants had also taken part in several battles in Syria and Iraq and contributed financially to the movement.
Four defendants, two Kuwaitis and two non-Kuwaitis, were transferred to the central prison following interrogation, local daily Al Rai reported on Wednesday.
The public prosecution in the capital Kuwait City detained three defendants — a Kuwaiti, a Jordanian and an Egyptian — after quizzing them on the charges of joining Isil and their call to overthrow the regime through the use of force.
According to the case papers, the three suspects printed hundreds of leaflets that promoted extremist ideologies seeking to demolish the existing political structures.
The leaflets distributed in several areas also called for the rejection of the country’s rulers, the overthrow of the regime and to join up with an organisation that stood against Kuwaiti society. The defendants were also found guilty of joining an internationally banned organisation.
The three defendants had been closely monitored by the security agency after it received information that Isil cells had started to make moves in response to the decision by the international community to form a global alliance that said it would combat the movement.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have been actively pushing for concrete action to tackle Isil.
In Saudi Arabia, the Council of Senior Scholars, the highest religious body in the kingdom and the adviser to King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz on religious matters, condemned terrorism as “a heinous crime and an abominable act of injustice and aggression.”
In a statement issued on Tuesday at the end of a conference, the senior scholars said that religion and human instincts rejected terrorism in all its forms.
“The perpetrators of acts of terrorism should be severely punished, in line with the texts and provisions of the Islamic law and with the requirements of preserving Islamic jurisdiction,” the statement said.
“Terrorism exposes the interests of the nation to the greatest dangers, and whoever alleges that terrorism is Jihad is in fact ignorant. Terrorism is not in any way equated with or related with terrorism, and Islam is innocent of this misguided and deviant ideology that has caused bloodshed and bombed houses, vehicles and public and private facilities in some countries,” it said.
