Kuwait's criminal court sentenced an Australian mother of Arab origin to two years in jail on Monday for allegedly insulting the emir, her lawyer said. "I will appeal the verdict tomorrow," lawyer Falah al-Hajraf told AFP. "My client has denied the charge during the trial and insisted she committed no wrongdoing."
Nasra al-Shimmari, 43, was arrested at Kuwait airport in December after she allegedly insulted Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, during a quarrel between her children and husband and an airport employee. She has been in jail since her arrest along with two of the couple's seven children. Her husband and the other five children were not allowed into the oil-rich Gulf state.
Hajraf said that police has not yet pressed charges against Shimmari's two sons, in their early 20s, and "it looks as if the case is over." The Shimmary family obtained Australian citizenship a few years ago. Previously they lived in Kuwait among the some 100,000 bidoons, or stateless Arabs. Bidoons have no right to work, obtain a birth certificate for their babies or even get their marriage certificate attested. According to the government bidoons in Kuwait number 70,000, however rights groups place the number at 120,000.