Kuwaiti Officials Watch Public Executions While Enjoying Refreshments - Viewer Discretion Advised

Following are excerpts from footage of public executions in Kuwait, which aired on Al-Watan TV and was posted on the Internet on April 1, 2013.

Reporter: For the first time since 2007, the Interior Ministry's Department for Delivering Justice carried out the execution of three convicted murderers, in keeping with Allah's verse: "There is [saving of] life in legal retribution."

All three were convicted of premeditated murder. The first convict, Zhaher Al-Atebi, who holds no nationality, murdered his wife, son, and daughter, and tried to shoot another daughter. The second convict, Faysal Al-Atawi, a Saudi, stabbed his friend to death. The third convict, Pervez Gholam, a Pakistani, killed a man and a woman.

Before the execution, the first asked to pray, the Saudi asked for a cigarette and requested to see his mother, while the Pakistani kept smiling and did not ask fro anything.

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Since 1964, when capital punishment was instated, the number of people sentenced to death has reached 72, including three women.

During the meetings of the social committee and the committee for human rights of the U.N., which discussed capital punishment in member states in November 1999, Kuwait said that the death penalty pertains to the penal code, and is not a human rights issue.

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