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Kuwait Islamists

may face attempted

murder charge

KUWAIT: Islamists who threatened a journalist with a pistol over a cartoon deemed offensive to Islam could face charges of attempted murder, Kuwait's interior minister said in remarks published on Wednesday.

The minister, Sheikh Ali Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah, denied a newspaper report that police had seized light weapons in raids on property belonging to the group of five Islamists, al-Watan and the English-language Kuwait Times newspapers reported.

Sheikh Ali added the five appeared to have acted without a political motive and were not part of any organisation.

The group of Islamists burst into the offices of the Arab Times on Saturday and pointed a pistol at the news editor in protest against a cartoon they saw as offensive to Islam.

Witnesses said the gunman pulled the trigger but the gun did not go off. The group fled but were arrested within a day by police, after a chase.

The Arab Times on Monday reported that police had raided a number of apartments in Kuwait City's Salmiya suburb belonging to the Islamists and had recovered light weapons.

"The interior ministry daily enters apartments and arrests people, but this has no relation with this (the newspaper incident)," Sheikh Ali was quoted as saying.

"The charge the ministry will level is of attempted murder, but the investigations have not been concluded yet," the Kuwait Times reported Sheikh Ali as saying.

The government had earlier sued the Arab Times for publishing the cartoon, saying it violated a ban on displays of material that could offend religion. The paper had apologised for running the cartoon before the attack.

Al-Talea, an opposition weekly, on Wednesday printed a statement addressed to the government by a group calling itself "The Movement For Purifying Islamic Ranks" that expressed anger over media reporting of the affair.

It said the man who had pointed the gun at the journalist was a patriot who had been imprisoned by Iraq during its 1990-91 occupation and had "paid his dues of loyalty" to Kuwait.-Reuter