A Kuwaiti appeals court on Monday overturned the acquittal of four Islamic militants and sentenced them to one year each in jail for battering a female student for not covering her hair in line with traditional Muslim dress.
Adel al-Zamel, Hammad Nada, Abdullah al-Shimmari and Badi al-Ajmi were originally acquitted of the charge by a criminal court in June for lack of evidence.
The appeals court freed on a bail of 3,250 dollars a fifth suspect and acquitted two other defendants.
The militants allegedly stopped Dalia al-Bannai in front of her college early April, whipped her with electric wire, fractured her arm and cut off strands of her hair.
Bannai protested she was attacked for not wearing a hijab head-covering.
But the defence told the court there had only been a verbal run-in between the two parties after Bannai had been found with her boyfriend not in front of the college but in a chalet located in the desert.
Kuwait has witnessed a spate of attacks on video shops, newspapers and individuals, with extremist Islamic elements held to blame -- KUWAIT CITY (AFP)
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