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Bahrain Police and the Criminal Justice System
The Ministry of Interior has overall responsibility for
public security and law and order. Under the ministry, the
national police has primary responsibility for maintaining
public
order and preventing and investigating crimes. The
National
Guard--a semiautonomous body--has guard duties on the
border and
at oil fields, utilities, and other strategic locations.
The
guard acts as a reserve for the regular forces and
reinforces the
metropolitan police as needed.
Police selected for officer rank attend a three-year
program
at the Police Academy. National Guard officer candidates
attend
the Kuwaiti Military College, after which they receive
specialized guard training. Women work in certain police
departments, such as criminal investigation, inquiries,
and
airport security.
The principal police divisions are criminal
investigation,
traffic, emergency police, nationality and passports,
immigration, prisons, civil defense, and trials and
courtsmartial . The criminal investigation division is
responsible for
ordinary criminal cases; Kuwait State Security
investigates
security-related offenses. Both are involved in
investigations of
terrorism and those suspected of collaboration with Iraq.
The Kuwaiti judicial system generally provides fair
public
trials and an adequate appeals mechanism, according to the
United
States Department of State's Country Reports on Human
Rights
Practices for 1991. Under Kuwaiti law, no detainee can
be
held for more than four days without charge; after being
charged
by a prosecutor, detention for up to an additional
twenty-one
days is possible. Persons held under the State Security
Law can
be detained. Bail is commonly set in all cases. The lowest
level
courts, aside from traffic courts, are the misdemeanor
courts
that judge offenses subject to imprisonment not exceeding
three
years. Courts of first instance hear felony cases in which
the
punishment can exceed three years. All defendants in
felony cases
are required to be represented by attorneys, appointed by
the
court if necessary. Legal counsel is optional in
misdemeanor
cases, and the court is not obliged to provide an
attorney.
Kuwaiti authorities contend that the rate of ordinary
crime
is low, and data available through 1986 tended to bear
this out.
Of more than 5,000 felonies committed in that year, only 5
percent were in the category of theft. The number of
misdemeanors
was roughly equal to the number of felonies, but only 10
percent
were thefts. Offenses involving forgery, fraud, bribery,
assaults
and threats, and narcotics and alcohol violations were all
more
common than thefts.
Two separate State Security Court panels, each composed
of
three justices, hear crimes against state security or
other cases
referred to it by the Council of Ministers. Trials in the
State
Security Court initially are held in closed session but
subsequently are opened to the press and others. They do
not, in
the judgment of the Department of State, meet
international
standards for fair trials. Military courts, which
ordinarily have
jurisdiction only over members of the armed services or
security
forces, can try offenses charged against civilians under
conditions of martial law. Martial law was imposed for the
first
time after the liberation of the country from Iraqi
occupation.
About 300 persons suspected of collaboration with Iraq
were tried
by military courts in May and June 1991, and 115 were
convicted.
Twenty-nine received sentences of death, later commuted to
life
imprisonment after international criticism of the trials.
Human
rights groups drew attention to the failure to provide
adequate
legal safeguards to defendants and an unwillingness to
accept the
defense that collaboration with Iraqi forces had been
coerced.
Many of the accused alleged that their confessions had
been
extracted under torture.
Data as of January 1993
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