Kuwait executed seven prisoners Wednesday, including a member of the royal family, marking the first death sentences to be carried out since 2013 in the Middle East country.
The seven prisoners, one of whom was Prince Faisal Abdullah al-Jaber al-Sabah, were hanged. Prince Faisal was convicted of killing his nephew Basil al-Sabah in 2010.
Nazra al-Enezi, one of those executed, had been convicted of killing nearly 60 people, including children, after she set a wedding tent on fire, enraged when her husband married a second wife, according to The Associated Press.
Al-Enezi’s lawyer spoke with her for the last time in December and told the AP, “She sounded very fragile, very shaken, more than any other time.”
“It’s impossible to say that she intended to kill all those women and children. ... It was a tragedy,” the lawyer added.
Only two of those executed were Kuwaitis, according to the state-run KUNA news agency. The others were a Bangladeshi, a Filipina, an Ethiopian, and two Egyptians.
The Bangladeshi man, convicted of rape, kidnapping, and theft, was the only one of the seven who didn't kill someone.
Filipina Jakatia Pawa, who was executed because she killed her employer’s daughter, reportedly asked her brother to take care of her two children after she was gone, the AP said.
Human rights groups are criticizing the mass execution.
“The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, degrading punishment,” Samah Hadid of Amnesty International’s Beirut office said in a statement, The New York Times reported. “Its use cannot be justified under any circumstances. Instead of resuming executions, the Kuwaiti authorities should immediately work to review laws relating to the death penalty and establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to ultimately abolishing the death penalty completely.”