US Department of State — Country Reports on Terrorism 2016: Kuwait

Threat and incidents: ISIS 'accounted for the primary threat', with AQAP a secondary threat. On 25 February 2016 a Kuwaiti national ran over five police officers, killing one; on 6 October an Egyptian worker rammed a vehicle into a pick-up carrying three US service members, who were uninjured.

Legal basis: 'While Kuwait did not have a comprehensive counterterrorism legal framework, it continued to prosecute crimes involving terrorism under its general criminal law (law #31 of 1970), and also prosecuted crimes involving both terrorism and the use of explosives under law #35 of 1985.' Law No. 106 of 2013 on AML/CFT 'contained articles that could be – and subsequently were – used by courts to prosecute terrorist attacks without a terrorist-financing component'. A July 2016 bill to criminalise support for or affiliation with terrorist organisations was not passed.

Measures and trials: in March 2016 Kuwait joined the GCC designation of Hizballah and terminated the residencies of Iraqi, Lebanese and Syrian expatriates reported to number about 1,100, through immediate deportation, departure orders, visa refusals and denial of entry. In January 2016 a criminal court sentenced two of 26 defendants to death in the Iran/Hizballah weapons-cache case; in May the death sentence on the principal defendant in the June 2015 Imam Sadeq mosque bombing was upheld. In November an appeals court imposed seven years for 'embracing the ideas and methodology of ISIS' — 'the first time a Kuwaiti court specifically penalized ideological affiliation with a terrorist organization – uncoupled from an act of terrorism'. The report notes 'some allegations that investigations were insufficient in some cases involving torture accusations'.

Terrorist financing: Kuwait strengthened charity supervision (closing two charities, requiring pre-approval for fundraising for foreign beneficiaries, and cashless collection during Ramadan), developed its financial intelligence unit and applied to the Egmont Group; nonetheless 'a number of UN-designated terrorist financiers continued to operate in Kuwait'.

USE IN A REPORT: the legal bases actually used to prosecute terrorism in Kuwait before any dedicated statute, and a dated official statement on residual terrorist-financing risk.

For criminal-law and asylum practitioners: the report explains that terrorism was prosecuted under general criminal law (Law No. 31 of 1970), the explosives law of 1985 and, by extension, the 2013 AML/CFT law, and records the first conviction for ideological affiliation alone — relevant where a person fears prosecution for association rather than acts. The mass termination of residencies after the Hizballah designation is a documented instance of collective administrative action against expatriates on suspected affiliation. For compliance specialists: the statement that UN-designated financiers continued to operate is a dated risk indicator to be weighed against later supervisory developments, including the 2017 report also on this Dossier.