Rejected Suitor Executed For Killing

A stateless Arab man was executed Sunday for stabbing to death the woman he loved but could not marry.

Turki Mohammad Rafaa, who was in his 20s, was hanged in Kuwait’s central prison, said a justice ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The office would not release further information. But the independent Al-Qabas newspaper said Rafaa had been convicted of abducting and murdering an 18-year-old woman after her family rejected his marriage proposal because he was not a citizen of any country.

Al-Qabas quoted court documents as saying Rafaa drove the woman to the desert, told her he had heard she was marrying someone else, then stabbed her in the back with a knife.

Kuwait is home to some 180,000 stateless Arabs, also known as “bedoun” - Arabic for “without” - who were originally members of nomadic tribes.