Kuwait Urged to Erase Death Sentences : Persian Gulf: France, Germany, the U.N. and two rights groups criticize the martial-law trials.

The French and German governments and two human rights groups Wednesday joined U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar in urging Kuwait not to execute convicted wartime collaborators. But a senior Kuwaiti official dismissed growing international criticism of the martial-law trials as premature.

The official said that the more than 200 verdicts, which include 21 death sentences, have yet to be reviewed by a special judicial panel, approved by the crown prince and sanctioned by the emir.

“This is the court of first instance,” he said. “Our emir has always been very reluctant to approve death sentences, even for those who tried to blow up his car and kill him.”

The martial-law trials continued Wednesday at the marble-tiled Palace of Justice, where seven actors, poets and songwriters were convicted of producing works lauding Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and were sentenced to life in prison.

In what has become a daily ritual, the defendants, mostly Iraqi nationals who have lived for decades in Kuwait, pleaded innocent and claimed that they were forced to cooperate with the occupation army.

One of those sentenced to life imprisonment was a 42-year-old actress, Zanouba Abdul Ashoor, who sang a song of praise to Hussein while his troops were ravaging Kuwait city. She told the court that she was shot by an unknown assailant shortly after the allied liberation.

Four other artists, including a 73-year-old poet, were convicted of aiding the enemy and taking part in propaganda campaigns and given 15-year sentences. One defendant was given a suspended sentence, and one was acquitted.

It was unclear whether the martial-law tribunal, which could have sentenced the artists to death, muted its punishments in response to increasingly strident criticism from the nations that liberated Kuwait.

On Tuesday, Perez de Cuellar asked Kuwait not to execute six journalists convicted of working at a pro-Iraqi newspaper during the occupation. A spokesman said Perez de Cuellar had no information about the guilt or innocence of the journalists but called for the pardon on humanitarian grounds.

The German government was more forceful Wednesday. “The government expects that death sentences already passed will not be carried out, and no more will be passed,” said Dieter Kastrup, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry.

The French foreign minister also asked Kuwait’s emir, Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, to pardon condemned collaborators.

“These death sentences one after the other are worrying,” Roland Dumas, minister of state for foreign affairs, told a weekly Cabinet meeting, according to a government spokesman.

Also Wednesday, the Cairo-based Arabian Organization for Human Rights called on Kuwait to reverse the verdicts. And the New York-based Human Rights Watch released a seven-page letter to Kuwait’s emir detailing shortcomings in the trials.

“The trials of suspected collaborators have systematically fallen far short of international standards,” said the letter from Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch’s deputy director. Among the deficiencies he cited were coerced confessions, inadequate legal counsel and lack of opportunity to appeal.

In Israel, meanwhile, Kuwait’s ambassador to Washington was quoted as saying that President Bush advised him not to be intimidated by criticism of the trials, the Associated Press reported.

The weekly Jerusalem Report magazine also quoted Ambassador Saud al Nasir al Sabah as saying Kuwait will rid itself of most of its Palestinians--apparently by refusing to renew work and residency permits--keeping only those “who are good and we can use.”