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Kuwait hangs seven people including royal, says state media

Faisal Abdullah al-Jaber al-Sabah, convicted of murdering his nephew, among condemned
The executions were the first in Kuwait since 2013 (AFP)

Kuwait on Wednesday hanged seven people including a member of the ruling al-Sabah family, the KUNA state news agency reported.

On the list were two Kuwaiti nationals, including Faisal Abdullah al-Jaber al-Sabah. They are the first executions in the Gulf state since mid-2013.

Sabah, the first royal to be executed in the emirate, was convicted of killing his nephew in 2010 over a dispute.

Nusra al-Enezi, the other Kuwaiti, was convicted of setting fire to a tent in 2009 during a wedding party for her husband, killing 57 people, many of them women and children.

It was an apparent act of revenge against her husband for taking a second wife.

Two Egyptian men, a Bangladeshi man, a Filipina and an Ethiopian woman were also among the condemned, KUNA said citing a source at the public prosecution.

The Filipina and Ethiopian were domestic workers convicted of murdering members of their employers' families in unrelated crimes.

The two Egyptians were convicted of premeditated murders while the Bangladeshi was convicted of abduction and rape.

In a separate case on Wednesday, a Kuwaiti appeals court upheld a three-year prison sentence for a member of the ruling family on charges of insulting the emir and other royals.

Sheikh Abdullah Salem al-Sabah, a grandson of the emir's late half-brother, was handed the jail term in September. Both he and the public prosecution appealed.

The charges related to video messages he posted on social media in early 2015 in which he strongly criticised the functioning of the government.

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