Kuwait's top court will on November 20 hear the final appeal of a former colonel facing the gallows for heading a puppet government after Iraq's 1990 invasion, newspapers reported Wednesday.
Although the cassation court's normal role is to ensure the law has been correctly implemented, Alaa Hussein Ali's lawyer Nawaf Sari hopes the whole case will be reviewed, Al-Rai Al-Aam said.
Verdicts by Kuwait's highest court are final, but any death sentence upheld by the cassation court needs to be approved by the emir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who has the power to commute sentences.
Ali was sentenced to death in absentia in 1993. The sentence was confirmed by the criminal court on May 3 when he was convicted of treason, collaboration with the enemy, and undermining Kuwait's security and sovereignty.
On July 9, an appeals court upheld the sentence.
Ali has denied the charges and said he was threatened by senior Iraqi officials to accept the post of prime minister, which was created immediately after Iraq's troops invaded and occupied the oil-rich emirate in August 1990.
Charges against Ali's eight-member cabinet were dropped after their return to Kuwait in March 1991, shortly after the emirate was liberated in the Gulf War. Ali flew back last January from Norway -- KUWAIT CITY (AFP)
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