Kuwait's criminal court Tuesday sentenced a Shia activist to 10 years in jail in absentia for abusing Islam's first two caliphs in an audiotape that was distributed in the emirate, the defence lawyer said.
Yasser al-Habeeb, 21, was jailed for one year on January 19 and fined 3,340 dollars by the emirate's lower court of misdemeanours, but the appeals court in March ordered a retrial after upgrading the charge to a criminal offence.
Habeeb was arrested in November last year and freed on February 25 in an annual pardon by the emir, but he was ordered re-arrested after discovery that his release had been a legal error. He has been in hiding ever since.