Hezbollah fighters in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Nov. 24, 2021. (Credit: Anwar Amro/AFP)
BEIRUT — Kuwait announced Monday its decision to keep in custody 12 people detained earlier this month on accusations of financing Hezbollah, the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai reported, adding that this extension of the provisional detention will be effective for two weeks.
Here’s what we know:
• Another Kuwaiti daily, Al-Qabas, had reported on Nov. 18 that the Kuwaiti General Prosecutor's Office had placed in provisional detention, for a period of 21 days, 18 people of unspecified nationalities on accusations of financing the pro-Iranian Shiite party.
• Earlier in November, the Kuwaiti authorities had arrested eight Kuwaitis accused of financing Hezbollah. At the time they said they would arrest others involved in this case.
• The arrests and detentions come at a time when relations between Lebanon and Kuwait, like other Gulf countries, remain tense due to the diplomatic crisis triggered by the comments of the Information Minister George Kurdahi on Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the war in Yemen.
• Following the airing of Kurdahi’s statements — which had been made before he took up his post as minister — in October, Kuwait expelled the Lebanese chargé d'affaires and recalled its ambassador to Beirut. Reports have also circulated in recent weeks in the Kuwaiti press about a tightening of the conditions for obtaining visas and renewing residence permits for Lebanese passport holders.