Manama: Kuwait’s Court of Appeals has upheld a five-year sentence against three Syrians, including two mosque imams, for raising funds illegally.

The defendants were handed down the sentence by the Criminal Court in March after they were arrested collecting funds for Al Nusra Front terror group and for using mosques to urge people to donate money.

Two of the accused took money from worshippers at the mosque, claiming that they would be channelled to needy Syrian families forced to leave their hometowns because of the war.

The two imams were able to raise huge funds that they presented to the third defendant, the head of a company, who transferred them to overseas accounts and subsequently to Al Nusrah Front, Kuwait daily Al Rai reported on Tuesday.

The defendants admitted to the charges during their questioning by the public prosecution and said that the money was transferred in small amounts to avoid drawing the attention of authorities or raising the alarm about their illegal activities.

However, they denied the charges during their trial.

Kuwait has banned raising funds at mosques and other places without a proper permission from the authorities.

In 2014, US Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen in remarks before the Centre for a New American Security on Confronting New Threats in Terrorist Financing, said, “Although much of the private fundraising in the Gulf related to Syria is motivated by a sincere and admirable desire to ease suffering, and the funds are used for legitimate humanitarian purposes, a number of fundraisers operating particularly in Kuwait and Qatar are soliciting donations to fund extremist insurgents, not to meet legitimate humanitarian needs.”

Cohen said that some fundraisers in Kuwait “exploit the charitable impulses of unwitting donors by soliciting humanitarian donations from both inside and outside the country, cloaking their efforts in humanitarian garb, but diverting those funds to extremist groups in Syria”.

“While we congratulate the Kuwaiti Government on steps it has taken recently to enhance its capacity to combat illicit finance, such as enacting a new law outlawing terrorist financing, we urge the Kuwaitis to do more to effectively stem the flow of money to terrorists.”