Kuwaiti lawyers sue Shiite MPs over slain Hezbollah commander

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The lawsuit is against MPs Adnan Abdulsamad, who spoke at the rally, and Ahmad Lari, as well as former minister Abdulhadi al-Saleh, former MP Abdulmohsen Jamal and municipal council member Fadhel Safar, lawyer Dhaidan al-Mutairi told AFP.

"We accused them of being founders and members of Hezbollah Kuwait, undermining national unity and declaring loyalty to Lebanon’s Hezbollah," Mutairi said after meeting with the public prosecutor.

These charges are punishable under Kuwait’s penal code, he said.

Lebanon Shiite militant movement Hezbollah does not have a known offshoot in Kuwait but some people in the Gulf emirate believe there is such a group operating underground and refer to it as "Hezbollah Kuwait."

"Now the public prosecutor is expected to seek information about the men and then interrogate them," Mutairi said.

MPs in Kuwait cannot be arrested or interrogated before parliament agrees to lift their immunity. This can be done through a request by the public prosecution.

The rally held Saturday to mourn Imad Mughnieh, who was killed last week in a car bombing in Damascus, was attended by hundreds of Shiites under the close watch of security agencies.

Abdulsamad described Mughnieh as a "martyr hero" and denied that he was involved in the 1988 plane hijacking which led to the killing of two Kuwaitis whose bodies were dumped on the tarmac of Larnaca airport in Cyprus.

Sunni MPs and activists have blasted organisers of the rally and called on the government to prosecute them. Some MPs even called on Abdulsamad to give up his parliamentary seat.

The government of oil-rich Kuwait, where Shiites form one-third of the native population of one million, appealed for restraint on Monday after the reactions to the rally took a sectarian turn.

The cabinet also condemned organisers of the rally for glorifying a "terrorist whose hands were stained with the blood of innocent martyrs and who was behind many terrorist and criminal attacks".

The cabinet accused Mughnieh of hijacking the Kuwaiti passenger plane in 1988, in the first time that Kuwait officially names Mughnieh as the perpetrator in the hijacking which lasted 16 days.

The plane was the second to be hijacked by Shiite militants to demand the release of 17 Shiites imprisoned in Kuwait for carrying out bombings against US and French embassies and Kuwaiti targets in December 1983.

They escaped from prison when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990.

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