Kuwait’s supreme court on Monday upheld the death sentence handed down to the main convict in the ISIL bombing of a Muslim mosque that killed 26 people

Kuwait's supreme court on Monday upheld the death sentence handed down to the main convict in the ISIL bombing of a Muslim mosque that killed 26 people.

The court confirmed the sentence of capital punishment passed on Abdulrahman Sabah Saud, a stateless man who drove the Saudi suicide bomber to the mosque in June last year.

The court also upheld jail terms of between two and 15 years for eight people, including four women, and acquitted 15 others including three women.

The court did not hear the appeals of five others -- four Saudis and a stateless man -- who had been sentenced to death in absentia by a lower court.

Under Kuwaiti law, sentences issued in absentia are not reviewed by higher courts until those convicted appear in person.

The four Saudi men still at large include two brothers who smuggled the explosives belt used in the attack into Kuwait from neighboring Saudi Arabia. The fifth man is a stateless Arab.

Twenty-nine defendants, including seven women, had been charged with helping the Saudi suicide bomber attack a Muslim mosque in the capital, which was the bloodiest in Kuwait's history.

An ISIL-affiliated group calling itself Najd Province claimed the bombing as well as suicide attacks on two Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia in May last year.