Executions Kuwait

A Kuwaiti businessman said Saturday that he saw Iraqi soldiers summarily execute eight men accused of resistance activities in occupied Kuwait. The eight were "murdered by Iraqi soldiers who shot them with pistols," said the businessman, who spoke by a satellite telephone link--a rarity in this region since the Aug. 2 takeover of Kuwait by Iraq's forces. "Each victim was killed with one bullet in the head and another in the heart," he said, adding that the killings occurred Sept. 21.

By the time the police arrived Thursday afternoon, the bullet-riddled body had lain in Raed Youssef Njeibel's garbage-strewn side yard for three long days. The smell was bad enough. The body count was worse. "This is the third body they have dumped here," said the 20-year-old Kuwaiti student. But he added, "If they were brought here, it means they were guilty and were investigated."

At least 200 Kuwaitis have been executed since the Jan. 17 beginning of the allied air campaign against Iraq, 65 of them during a four-day period a week ago, a Kuwaiti official said Thursday. Kuwaiti Col. Abdullah Kandari also said that reports from Kuwaiti resistance fighters indicate the Iraqi army appears to be preparing for a bloody, house-to-house fight in Kuwait city, sealing off windows and fortifying houses in strategic locations.

The Kuwaiti government will seek to hang most of the 600 Iraqi, Palestinian and other prisoners being held for alleged war crimes, a prosecutor said. The government will also try in absentia hundreds of Iraqi officers who fled Kuwait as allied forces closed in, said Khalid Mudaf, a Justice Ministry official who will head the prosecutions.

By the time the police arrived Thursday afternoon, the bullet-riddled body had lain in Raed Youssef Njeibel's garbage-strewn side yard for three long days. The smell was bad enough. The body count was worse. "This is the third body they have dumped here," said the 20-year-old Kuwaiti student. But he added, "If they were brought here, it means they were guilty and were investigated."

The Kuwaiti government will seek to hang most of the 600 Iraqi, Palestinian and other prisoners being held for alleged war crimes, a prosecutor said. The government will also try in absentia hundreds of Iraqi officers who fled Kuwait as allied forces closed in, said Khalid Mudaf, a Justice Ministry official who will head the prosecutions.

Allied commanders accused Iraq on Saturday of conducting "a systematic campaign of execution" in occupied Kuwait, which a variety of reports suggested is suffering an intensifying devastation by the Iraqis. "This is terrorism at its finest hour," said Marine Brig. Gen. Richard I. Neal, U.S. military spokesman in Riyadh, charging that Iraqi soldiers were killing Kuwaiti civilians previously subjected to torture.

For years, the Bibi Saleh Center in downtown Kuwait city has been a haven for wealthy foreigners and Kuwaiti playboys and their girlfriends, a symbol of the oil-rich emirate's penchant for the pleasures of life. But in the two months since Iraq seized Kuwait, the four-towered condominium complex has become a cornerstone of Kuwait's brutal subjugation, according to reliable sources fleeing the country.

Allied commanders accused Iraq on Saturday of conducting "a systematic campaign of execution" in occupied Kuwait, which a variety of reports suggested is suffering an intensifying devastation by the Iraqis. "This is terrorism at its finest hour," said Marine Brig. Gen. Richard I. Neal, U.S. military spokesman in Riyadh, charging that Iraqi soldiers were killing Kuwaiti civilians previously subjected to torture.

At least 200 Kuwaitis have been executed since the Jan. 17 beginning of the allied air campaign against Iraq, 65 of them during a four-day period a week ago, a Kuwaiti official said Thursday. Kuwaiti Col. Abdullah Kandari also said that reports from Kuwaiti resistance fighters indicate the Iraqi army appears to be preparing for a bloody, house-to-house fight in Kuwait city, sealing off windows and fortifying houses in strategic locations.

For years, the Bibi Saleh Center in downtown Kuwait city has been a haven for wealthy foreigners and Kuwaiti playboys and their girlfriends, a symbol of the oil-rich emirate's penchant for the pleasures of life. But in the two months since Iraq seized Kuwait, the four-towered condominium complex has become a cornerstone of Kuwait's brutal subjugation, according to reliable sources fleeing the country.

A Kuwaiti businessman said Saturday that he saw Iraqi soldiers summarily execute eight men accused of resistance activities in occupied Kuwait. The eight were "murdered by Iraqi soldiers who shot them with pistols," said the businessman, who spoke by a satellite telephone link--a rarity in this region since the Aug. 2 takeover of Kuwait by Iraq's forces. "Each victim was killed with one bullet in the head and another in the heart," he said, adding that the killings occurred Sept. 21.