Kuwaiti Cop Sentenced to Death

A police officer was convicted Sunday of killing a magazine editor who had insulted his tribe in an article she had written. He was sentenced to death by hanging.

The officer, Khaled al-Azmi, was not present when the clerk announced the verdict and sentence, which can be appealed in 2 higher courts. The court did not provide an immediate explanation for its decision.

Al-Azmi, in his 40s, was found guilty of shooting to death Hidaya Sultan al-Salem, 56, in her car waiting at a traffic light on March 20.

Al-Salem's son, Nawwaf al-Othman, praised the verdict, saying it confirmed the supremacy of the law.

"This was a crime foreign to our society. In Kuwait, there is no room for the law of the jungle," al-Othman told The Associated Press.

 Prosecutors had accused al-Azmi of murdering al-Salem with a government-issued gun because she insulted his tribe in Al-Majales magazine. He had denied the charges in court.

 In a July 2000 article, al-Salem wrote about dancers her family used to hire from al-Awazem tribe that lived outside Kuwait City walls when she was a child. She said the dancers' movements were "all temptation and sexual suggestion."

 Al-Salem, who owned the magazine, wrote later that tribe members had complained that she suggested they were not real Kuwaitis by having lived outside the wall. She said that was not what she meant.