Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 20

Summary: - The Kuwaiti judiciary has jurisdiction over crimes punishable under the provisions of the Penal Code whenever committed within the territory of the State of Kuwait and its dependencies, and whenever the material element of any such crime, or one of its components, occurs within the State’s territory. - The material element of any crime consists of criminal conduct, a harmful result, and a causal relationship between them. The occurrence of any of these in the State of Kuwait establishes its courts’ jurisdiction to try the perpetrator under the laws in force therein. - The challenged judgment’s establishment that the appellant performed the material act in the crime of financing terrorism, relying on the evidence of guilt, and possessed criminal intent, thereby establishing the result which the legislature made the basis for punishment and which invariably occurs within the State of Kuwait, regardless of where the acts producing that harm take place. Its effect: the crime was completed with all its legal elements on the territory of the State of Kuwait, establishing the Kuwaiti judiciary’s jurisdiction. The reason therefor. Rule: Article 11 of the Penal Code provides: (The provisions of this Code apply to every person who commits, within the territory of Kuwait and its dependencies, any crime prescribed therein, and apply to every person who commits outside the territory of Kuwait an act making him a principal perpetrator or an accomplice in a crime occurring wholly or partly within the territory of Kuwait.) This indicates that the Kuwaiti judiciary has jurisdiction over crimes punishable under the Penal Code whenever committed within the territory of the State of Kuwait and its dependencies, and whenever the material element of any such crime, or one of its components, occurs within the State’s territory. Since the material element of any crime consists of criminal conduct, a harmful result, and a causal relationship between them, the occurrence of any of these components within the State of Kuwait establishes its courts’ jurisdiction to try the perpetrator under the laws in force therein. That being so, the challenged judgment established against the first appellant that the material act in the crime of financing terrorism charged against him began in the State of Kuwait, relying on the incident officer’s statements that he belongs to the Islamic State organization (Daesh) and finances prohibited terrorist groups in Syria after collecting funds in the State of Kuwait. He also trained in combat techniques with those groups for the purpose of carrying out an unlawful act, through repeated travel to Turkey and infiltration from there into Syria. He also collects funds from donations in the State of Kuwait and sends them to the organization in Syria; after collecting them, he personally travels to Syria and delivers them to the organization’s members there. This necessarily entails his criminal intent in what he committed and harm to the State of Kuwait’s political standing, thereby establishing the result which the legislature made the basis for punishment for the crime of financing terrorism and which invariably occurs within the State of Kuwait, regardless of where the acts producing that harm take place. Accordingly, this crime was completed with all its legal elements on the territory of the State of Kuwait. Moreover, what the challenged judgment established above constitutes the result forming the basis for punishment for the crime of undertaking, without government permission, a hostile act against a foreign state, prescribed in the first paragraph of Article 4 of Law No. 31 of 1970 amending certain provisions of the Penal Code: exposing the State of Kuwait to the risk of war with that state or severance of political relations with it, which always occurs within the territory of the State of Kuwait. It follows that jurisdiction to try the first appellant for these crimes lies with the national judiciary under the aforementioned Article 11. The appellant’s plea that the Kuwaiti judiciary lacks jurisdiction to try him because the crimes attributed to him were committed outside the State of Kuwait, as asserted in his grounds of appeal, is therefore unfounded. Since the challenged judgment adopted this view in rejecting the first appellant’s plea in this regard, it correctly applied the law, and his complaint in this respect is incorrect.