KUWAIT, March 20 -- Kuwait's top appeals court Monday upheld death sentences passed on two Iraqis convicted of plotting to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait in April 1993. But the Court of Cassation commuted the death sentences imposed on three other Iraqis and a Kuwaiti and set aside the conviction of a second Kuwaiti, also sentenced in 1994 after a year-long trial. Court President Abdullah al--Issa said the five-member appeal panel upheld the death sentences passed on Raed al-Asadi and Wali al-Ghazali. The sentences will now go before the Emir, Sheikh Jaber al-ahmad al- Sabah, for ratification before they can be carried out. The court said sentences against the other accused Iraqis, Salem Nasser Roomi al-Shimmary and Bandar Ajeel al-Shimmary, would be commuted to life in prison. The term for a third Iraqi, Adel Ismael al-Otaibi, was reduced to 15 years in jail followed by deportation. The court also lifted the death sentence from Kuwaiti Bader Jead al- Shimmary and set aside his conviction on charges of plotting to kill Bush. Instead, it accepted his conviction for trading in alcohol and sentenced him to five years imprisonment. The six were sentenced to death by the state security court in June 1994 on charges of trying to blow up Bush during a triumphal visit to Kuwait to commemorate the victory of the U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War, which expelled Iraqi occupation forces from the emirate. Security forces arrested members of the 14-member gang when they tried to enter Kuwait illegally from Iraq, allegedly packed with 80 kilograms (175 pounds) of explosives.
The court, which also heard appeals against lesser sentences passed at the trial, reduced to five years a 12-year sentence passed on another Iraqi defendant, Ahmed Jabbar al-Kannai, for possession of weapons. It upheld the 4 -year sentence against Iraqi Ali Khudair Abed for complicity in the plot and possession of weapons. One Kuwaiti member of the gang was set free early in the case, four were released after serving six-month prison terms for their complicity and one man is still at large. Only one defendant, Wali al-Ghazali, has admitted planning to kill Bush. The others denied knowledge of the plot but admitted entering Kuwait illegally and possessing contraband alcohol.
