KUWAIT: Kuwait announced on Saturday that it has revoked Kuwaiti citizenship from Ala Hussein Al-Khafaji who headed a puppet government installed during the 1990-91 Iraqi invasion by former president Saddam Hussein.

Khafaji stayed in office for just a few days as the president of the republic of Kuwait but Iraq annexed Kuwait just after five days and he became Iraq’s deputy prime minister.

A former officer in the Kuwaiti military, Khafaji fled the country after the liberation of Kuwait in February 1991 by a US-led international coalition and sought asylum in Europe. A Kuwaiti court sentenced him to death in absentia in 1993 for treason.

He returned to Kuwait seven years later to appeal his death sentence. Kuwait’s court of cassation, the highest in the country, later commuted the sentence to a life term in prison. The 76-year-old is still serving the sentence.

The government also stripped the citizenship of Mohammad Hamad Al-Juwaed, a former officer in the National Guard, after being convicted of spying for Iraq. He was arrested in 2003.