Hard time for Kuwaiti Twitter remarks

KUWAIT CITY, June 5 (UPI) -- A Kuwaiti man was sentenced to 10 years for comments he made on Twitter insulting the Prophet Mohammed and the Sunni rulers of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

A court determined the comments posted on Hamad al-Naqi's Twitter account also endangered national security, the newspaper al-Bawaba reported Tuesday.

Al-Naqi, who pleaded innocent, told the court his Twitter account had been hacked. Attorney Khaled al-Shatti said the sentence would be appealed.

The written verdict, delivered by Judge Hisham Abdullah, found al-Naqi guilty of all charges, a court secretary told a press conference in Kuwait City.

Al-Bawaba said Kuwaiti politicians were disappointed, saying al-Naqi should have been sentenced to death as an example to those inclined to insult Islam.