The Court of Cassation presided over by Judge Sultan Boursli rejected the defendant’s final appeal and confirmed the three-year imprisonment that had been reduced from an initial five-year term imposed by the Criminal Court. The Court of Appeals had lowered the penalty prior to the highest court’s decision according to judicial records from the proceedings. Prosecutors built the case around the man’s deliberate affiliation with the group whose aims included destabilizing state systems through unlawful actions that could harm Kuwait’s core national interests.
State Security received intelligence about the defendant’s ties to the terrorist organization and his plans to re-enter the country from Turkey. Public Prosecution then secured a warrant that permitted his immediate detention at Kuwait International Airport upon landing. The resulting investigation relied heavily on statements the suspect provided during questioning following his arrest.
Court documents show the defendant acknowledged adopting extremist jihadist ideology at a young age before contacting a Syrian ISIS member in 2016 to arrange his enlistment. He traveled to the group’s headquarters in the al-Tall area of rural Damascus supplied his personal information and was transported with other recruits to a training camp. There he swore allegiance to the organization’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi according to the official case file.
The recruit underwent roughly 30 days of military instruction that included handling firearms and ammunition learning combat tactics and performing intensive physical exercises. After Free Syrian Army forces seized the area he surrendered and spent about one month in their detention. Records indicate he continued as an ISIS member until 2019 before eventually returning to Kuwait.
Kuwait has prosecuted numerous similar cases in the past decade. The US Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism 2016 noted that in December a Criminal Court sentenced a Kuwaiti foreign terrorist fighter to five years in jail for joining ISIS in Syria. Subsequent reports from the department described the Court of Cassation upholding 10-year prison sentences for three citizens and a two-year sentence for one Syrian national convicted of ISIS membership in March 2020.
The latest ruling concludes the appeals process for this defendant whose admissions formed the core of the prosecution’s evidence. Judicial authorities applied provisions under the State Security Crimes Law throughout the multi-stage proceedings that began with the intelligence-triggered arrest.
