The 2009 Kuwait wedding fire, that killed 58 Women and
children on August 15, 2009, her reason for starting the fire: Revenge - Starting a fire at wedding
celebrations in which her husband was taking a second wife, in Al Jahra,
Kuwait. She was sentenced to death on March 30th , 2010.
The 2009 Kuwait wedding fire was an arson attack that
occurred during a wedding ceremony in Jahra, Kuwait on August 15, 2009. At
least 57 people were killed and about 90 others wounded when the groom's
23-year-old ex-wife, Nasra Yussef Mohammad al-Enezi, to take revenge for her
husband's second marriage, poured petrol on a tent where women and children
were celebrating and set it on fire. Within three minutes the whole tent, which
had only one exit and did not meet fire safety regulations, was engulfed in
flames, trapping many inside. It was the deadliest civilian disaster in Kuwait
in the last 40 years. There was only one exit. It had been claimed that the
temperature inside the tent was above 500 degrees Celsius (930 °F). Although
al-Enezi recanted a confession she had given to police after her arrest,
stating in court she had only sprayed the tent with cursed water, but did not
set it on fire, she was found guilty of premeditated murder and starting a fire
with the intent to kill and sentenced to death on March 30, 2010.
***
Debate continues in Kuwait over woman's death sentence
A case involving a Kuwaiti woman who received a death
sentence for her role in a tent fire that led to 58 deaths has triggered
intense debate in the country. Some Kuwaitis hoped the ruling would be reduced
to a life sentence while others considered the death penalty a fair punishment.
On June 12th, the Supreme Court upheld the Appeals Court's
decision to execute the woman. The decision marked the first time in Kuwait's
history that the highest court upheld a death sentence for a woman. Nasra
Yousef Al Enezi, 24, was accused of setting a tent on fire in August 2009
during the wedding of her husband, Zayed Zafiri, 36. The incident led to the
death of 58 women and children and injured 30 others. The husband was
celebrating his second marriage. Neither the husband nor the second wife were
in the tent when the incident occurred. The event was held in Al Jahra
province, north of Kuwait City. Al Enezi and Zafiri have two children, Shaqha,
5, and Muhammad, 3.
Defense attorney Zaid al-Khabbaz hoped the sentence would be
reduced to life imprisonment. He told Al-Shorfa the court "did not listen
to the defense from the beginning so the verdict was decided in advance. "
He criticized the handling of the case from the beginning which started as
"an ordinary criminal case and became a case of public opinion with
interference from political interests, which led to the issuance of a death
sentence. " Al-Khabbaz ruled out the possibility that the victims'
families would give up their right to retribution "because of the great
pressures exerted on them". He hoped for "the humanity of the
country's emir to commute the death sentence".
If the victims' families surrendered their right to
retribution, the case would be waived and the defendant would pay a fee to the
victims' families at the court's determination. Since the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh
Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah assumed power, he has not ratified a death sentence as
the penalties were commuted to life imprisonment. This was the second time a
Kuwaiti woman received a death sentence. The first was issued by the Criminal
Court on March 21, 2005 when a woman was accused of drug trafficking. The Court
of Appeals reduced the sentence to 15 years in prison, and the Supreme Court
upheld the decision on January 30, 2007.
Dr. Abdul Wahab Zafiri, head of the Department of Sociology
at the University of Kuwait, said, "The issue from the beginning was very
tragic. This disaster has many victims." He added, "I do not mean
only those who died but also those who were injured or who witnessed the
tragedy and were psychologically affected to a large degree, which may prevent
them from attending such events again." He said the tragedy occurred
because of the failure to provide solutions to current social problems, notably
polygamy, the lack of respect for women and appreciation for the role they play
in society. It has become easy for any man to marry another woman without clear
justification. Zafiri said he personally opposes the death penalty and was
sympathetic with the accused and with the victims' families.
He said, "The circumstances surrounding the accused
pushed her to act in this manner. As for the victims' families, no one can
blame them for not waiving their right to retribution. Some of them might even
view death as insufficient for the torment of losing their loved ones." Khidr
al-Baroon, a professor of psychology at the University of Kuwait, believed
compassion could be offered to the families of the victims and to the accused. Al-Baroon
said, "In view of her young age and lack of experience, she lost control
when she felt intense jealousy and experienced the trauma of her husband
marrying another woman." He hoped that the emir would reduce the punishment.
Najla al-Naqi, a lawyer in the government's Department of Fatwa and
Legislation, supported the death sentence on the grounds that it would be
"the best deterrent to any woman thinking of committing such an act".
She told Al-Shorfa, "It is not reasonable for the
victims' families to waive their right (of retribution), especially since many
families lost mothers and daughters." Kuwaiti citizens were divided about
the court's ruling. Engineer Saleh al-Harbi, 45, considered the death sentence
fair and wished it would be implemented quickly. He said, "It does not
make sense for a woman, lured by the devil to kill 58 human beings, to stay
alive." Najah Al Ajmi, 50, a teacher, suggested following Europe's example
of abolishing the death penalty. She expected the death sentence would be
commuted to life imprisonment.
***
Kuwait wife sentenced to death for fatal wedding fire
[ BBC.co.uk, March 30, 2010]
A court in Kuwait has sentenced a 23-year-old woman to death
for starting a fire at wedding celebrations in which her husband was taking a
second wife. Some 57 women and children were killed in the incident in al-Jahra
in August, making it one of the worst civilian disasters in Kuwait's modern
history. The judge found the woman, Nasra Yussef Mohammed al-Enezi, guilty of
premeditated murder.
She denied the charges and her lawyers say they will appeal.
Death sentences in Kuwait are carried out by hanging. Enezi, who was not
present in court for the verdict, was found guilty of "premeditated murder
and starting a fire with the intent to kill". Press reports at the time of
the blaze said she had wanted to avenge her husband's "bad treatment"
of her, but in court she denied any involvement in the incident. The victims were
all women and children because wedding celebrations are traditionally
segregated along gender lines.
Ninety guests were injured in the blaze and the ensuing
stampede to get out of the tent, which only had one exit. Kuwait banned wedding
tents after the incident.
***
Kuwaiti woman
denies starting deadly fire at wedding
[By Omar Hasan (AFP), October 27, 2009)
KUWAIT CITY — A Kuwaiti woman denied in court on Tuesday
causing a blaze that killed 55 women and children by setting light to a tent at
a wedding party after the man she had married took another wife. Nasra Yussef
Mohammad al-Enezi, whose lawyers say she is still married to the man, simply
replied "no" when Judge Adel al-Sager asked her if she had set the
crowded tent on fire and killed the people. It was the only word the
23-year-old spoke during the brief hearing, which opened her murder trial. The
August 15 inferno engulfed the women-and-children-only tent in just minutes and
triggered a panicked stampede.
Nasra was brought to the small courtroom from the central
prison, accompanied by five female guards. Pale and looking frail, she was
allowed to sit outside the dock, which is not usual for defendants that are in
custody. She initially refused to speak after two female guards had helped her to
the judge's rostrum. Dressed in a long grey dress, the young woman had entered
the court with her face fully covered. But when she approached the judge,
guards removed the cover revealing her stunned face. She refused to answer
questions by the judge, who ordered guards to give her water and told her to
sit.
The judge then proceeded with other cases. At the judge's
second attempt to ask her plea, she denied the charges. Her three lawyers
called for her release pending the full trial and accused prison officials of
mistreating her. Defense lawyers alleged that Nasra was two-months pregnant
when arrested and was "deliberately aborted" by a prison guard with
the help of an Asian nurse.
Lawyer Khaled al-Awadhi told reporters the prison guard is a
relative of Nasra's husband and has since been transferred from the prison. Lawyer
Saqqaf al-Saqqaf told AFP he believes Nasra was made to take drugs, passed off
as tranquilizers, that immediately caused her abortion. Prison officials failed
to send her to the hospital for examination of what caused the abortion, he
said.
Saqqaf added that under Kuwaiti law, death sentences for
pregnant women are automatically commuted to life imprisonment. "Perhaps
this is the reason why they aborted her," he said. The three lawyers
demanded that Nasra be examined by a doctor to establish how she lost her baby
and when. The prosecutor presented no arguments during the hearing, but lawyer
Zaid al-Khabbaz told reporters the woman is charged with "premeditated
murder and starting a fire with the intent to kill." The judge rejected
all the defense petitions and set November 17 for the next session, to hear defense
arguments. Nasra was arrested on August 16, a day after 41 women and children
died in a fire at a wedding tent in Jahra, west of Kuwait City. The death toll
later rose to 55, according to the interior ministry. She was initially
believed to be the groom's ex-wife, but her defense lawyers say that she is
still his wife. Men are allowed to have more than one wife in this Muslim Gulf
state.
Nasra and the man have two children, both of whom are
mentally handicapped.
***
Kuwait wedding blaze death toll rises to 55
(By Andy Sambidge - ArabianBusiness.com, October 18, 2009)
The number of deaths related to wedding tent fire in Jahra, Kuwait
in August has increased to 55, an official said on Sunday. In a statement to
KUNA News Agency, the Interior Ministry's spokesman Colonel Mohammad Al-Sabr
said one further person had succumbed to their injuries sustained in the blaze,
which was started deliberately. He expressed his deepest condolences to the
families of the recently deceased. There were around 80 people injured in the
fire, which occurred on August 15. They were mostly women and children. The
fire gutted a wedding tent in the district of Al-Jahra, north of the capital.
In August, the Kuwait Fire Service Department's (KFSD) final
report on the fire highlighted a number of "gross errors". It also
confirmed that the cause of the fire that led to the deaths earlier this month
was arson. The report emphasized the importance of enforcing the requirement
for obtaining licenses for events held in marquees for any purpose to avoid
such tragedies from occurring in the future. The report said that
investigations conducted by KFSD experts at the scene of the blaze concluded
that the fire was deliberately started, with evidence of flammable substances
discovered there.
The KFSD's report also listed a number of errors in the
marquee's layout and supplies that worsened the situation, such as the lack of
more than one entrance, the presence of large amounts of inflammable items and
overcrowding. The report proposed that a number of measures be introduced to
prevent such horrific events from recurring, such as banning the holding of
weddings in unlicensed tents.
---
As always, stay safe !
Bird
***
