Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 26

Summary: - The material element of the offence of financing terrorism. Article 3 of Law No. 106 of 2013 concerning Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. - Criminal intent in the offence of financing terrorism, even if the terrorist act does not occur or the funds are not used for a particular terrorist act, whatever the country in which the attempted terrorist act occurred. Its nature. Its inference is a matter of fact. The limit thereof. Rule: Whereas Article 3 of Law No. 106 of 2013 concerning Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing provides that: (Anyone who, directly or indirectly, wilfully and unlawfully provides or collects funds, or attempts to do so, with the intention that they be used to commit a terrorist act, or with knowledge that they will be used wholly or partly for that act, or for the benefit of a terrorist organization or a terrorist person, shall be deemed to have committed the offence of financing terrorism. Any of the acts mentioned in the preceding paragraph shall constitute an offence of financing terrorism, even if the terrorist act does not occur, or the funds are not actually used to carry it out or attempt it or the funds are connected with a particular terrorist act, whatever the country in which the attempted terrorist act occurred.), this means that the material element of the offence of financing terrorism is established whenever the perpetrator commits any of the acts prescribed in this Article. Criminal intent is also established by the perpetrator’s will being directed toward undertaking any of those acts with the intention of using them to commit a terrorist act, with knowledge that they are used wholly or partly for that act, or for the benefit of a terrorist organization or a person, even if the terrorist act does not occur or the funds are not used for a particular terrorist act, whatever the country in which the attempted terrorist act occurred. Assessment of the existence or absence thereof lies exclusively with the trial court, according to what it infers from the circumstances and elements of the case, provided that the implications of those circumstances and elements are not rationally inconsistent with that inference. What the challenged judgment stated in setting out the facts of the case and reviewing the substance of the evidence on which it relied in its ruling, in the foregoing context, establishes all the elements of the offence of financing terrorism as defined by law and provides an adequate response to the appellants’ arguments that those elements were absent in their case. Accordingly, their objection to the judgment in this regard is not correct.