A police officer has been arrested for the assassination of the owner of a Kuwaiti magazine in retaliation for an article about the officer's ethnic group, said reports.
"Ziab Khaled al-Azmi was arrested Wednesday morning by the police before confessing his crime," the official news agency KUNA said, quoting the interior ministry.
In a separate statement, police said Azmi, "a Kuwaiti national, admitted during questioning that he killed Mrs. Hidaya Sultan al-Salem using a revolver."
"Azmi's questioning is continuing to determine whether he acted alone or with accomplices," said the police statement.
Police sources said the officer, a lieutenant in his 40s, killed Salem for publishing an article in July he viewed as derogatory toward girls from his ancestral tribe, the al-Awazem, said AFP.
The Awazem, who number about 100,000, are greatly influential in Kuwait, holding eight seats in the 50-member parliament.
The investigators noticed that Hidaya's bullet wounds came from the type of pistol used only by police officers from the interior ministry.
Earlier Wednesday, reports said that the Kuwaiti security authorities have arrested four people in connection with the killing of Hidaya.
KUNA said that the suspects were being interrogated about the killing of Hidaya - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)