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Kuwait says suspect died of heart attack Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/10867973.htmhttp://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/10867973.htm
Posted on Thu, Feb. 10, 2005
Kuwait Says Heart Attack Killed Suspect
DIANA ELIAS
Associated Press
KUWAIT CITY - A jailed terror suspect captured during one of four shootouts last month between security forces and suspected militants died of a heart attack and not torture as one fundamentalist lawmaker suggested, Kuwait's interior ministry said in remarks published Thursday.
Amer al-Enezi, 29, died of heart failure Tuesday at a military hospital, the ministry said.
In remarks published Thursday in the Al-Rai Al-Aam daily newspaper, Interior Minister Sheik Nawwaf Al Ahmed Al Sabah said al-Enezi's death "was not the result of torture as some have alleged." He told the newspaper the coroner's report "will prove" his account.
Walid al-Tabtabai, a fundamentalist lawmaker, filed a question in parliament Wednesday asking whether al-Enezi's interrogators had respected a law that forbids torture.
Without addressing the legislator by name, Sheik Nawwaf said accusations that al-Enezi died of torture were not based on evidence.
Police detained al-Enezi, a former mosque preacher, in a Jan. 31 raid on a house in Mubarak Al Kabir, south of Kuwait City. The Interior Ministry said al-Enezi, the suspected ringleader, and other detainees were wounded in the raid, but the extent of their injuries was not disclosed.
Authorities said the suspects planned to attack American civilians, U.S. military convoys and Kuwaiti security forces. The group's plans were not carried out.
The minister of Islamic affairs, Abdullah al-Matouq, told the Al-Anbaa daily newspaper in Thursday's editions that al-Enezi had been warned several times about calling for jihad, or holy war, in Iraq, which al-Enezi denied. The minister described the preacher, who allegedly went to Iraq to fight U.S. forces there, as "contradictory and cowardly."
Al-Enezi's death followed clashes between militants and security forces during the past five weeks that brought the war on terrorism to Kuwaiti streets. His younger brother, Nasser, was killed in a Jan. 30 shootout.
After his arrest, authorities said Amer al-Enezi was questioned by state security officers and then referred to prosecutors.
The sister of the al-Enezi brothers, who asked that her name not be used, said the brothers went to Iraq to fight U.S. forces after they saw pictures of American soldiers abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
All four deadly shootouts in January between suspects and police were pre-emptive raids. Eight suspects and four policemen were killed.
On Saturday, five men turned themselves into authorities but two of them were later released. Forty people, including Amer al-Enezi's wife, are being questioned by prosecutors.
The U.S. Embassy has warned its nationals - about 13,000 American civilians in Kuwait - they could be targeted by terrorists.
The country hosts about 20,000 U.S. soldiers. Many troops travel by road to and from Iraq.
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