A Kuwait court acquitted him this Thursday after spending 52 days in detention amid punishment imposed by the authorities of the Persian Gulf country for the war in Iran, as reported by an NGO and the legal team of the reporter’s family.
“Full details are still being gathered, but his international legal team confirms that he has been found not guilty of the charges and is expected to be released imminently,” the office of Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, the legal team for the Shihab-Eldin sisters, revealed in a statement.
The note, which does not indicate what charges the journalist was accused of, highlights that Shihab-Eldin had not been seen in public since March 2 in Kuwait, where he was visiting his family, and that he was arrested the following day.
“We are relieved that, after 52 days of detention, Ahmed has been found not guilty of all charges. We are now focused on ensuring the freedom and safety of our client, and will provide more details as soon as they are confirmed,” the source added.
For its part, in another statement it celebrated the reporter’s acquittal after almost two months of detention and recalled that “Ahmed’s freedom and safety” are the organization’s top priority.
On April 14, CPJ explored the possibility that Kuwaiti authorities could arrest him for “spreading false information, threatening national security, and misusing cell phones.” These accusations, which the NGO described as “vague and excessively broad,” are commonly used in the Persian Gulf country to silence independent journalists like Shihab-Eldin, who has collaborated with international media such as The New York TimesPBS on Al Jazeera.
Before being detained in March, the reporter “commented on publicly available videos and images related to the Iran war,” according to CPJ. “Among his recent posts was a geolocated video, verified by CNN, that showed near a US air base in Kuwait,” the organization stated.
Likewise, he recalled that his arrest occurred amid “increasingly strict censorship of the press” in the Gulf States, and in Kuwait, where the Ministry of the Interior warned on March 2 against the recording or dissemination of videos or information related to the . The United States Army acknowledged that same day that, early that morning, three fighters “were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses,” but that their six crew members managed to eject safely.
Kuwait enacted a law on March 15 aimed at safeguarding and protecting the supreme interests of the military authorities. In its article 26, prison sentences of up to 10 years are imposed on anyone who “disseminates news, publishes statements or spreads false rumors related to military entities.”
