MALAPPURAM: The family of Mangattuchail Faisal (34), a native of Cheekode in the district, condemned to death a year ago in Kuwait after falsely entrapped in a drug case, is relieved. They received an intimation from Kuwait that the Supreme Court of the Gulf nation has reduced it to life term. The relatives had approached the court through a Kuwaiti lawyer against the death sentence in March last year seeking a review of the criminal court's decision. Lack of substantial evidence helped him escape death by beheading as per the Kuwaiti law, his father Ismail Kutty said.
The family had cried foul against the way he was entrapped and had sought both the state and Union governments' intervention. Mr Faisal was arrested by the Kuwaiti police after they found that the flat from where a stock of heroin seized was rented in his name. Though it was taken for his family on a visit to Kuwait in 2014, it was handed over to other occupants after their return to India. The police raid at the flat took place after one of the occupants was caught with the contraband at an airport in Kuwait in 2015.
