The News Freedom
www.thenewsfreedom.in
Chandigarh, November 24
A Qatar court has accepted the appeal document filed by India against the death sentence awarded to eight former Indian Navy officers. The court will now study it to come to a decision in the case, as per the media reports.
Previously on November 9, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson, Arindam Bagchi, said an appeal had been filed against the death sentence awarded to eight former Indian Navy personnel by a Qatar court last month. Giving details during a weekly media briefing, Bagchi had said that the court judgement is a confidential document and was only shared with a legal team. “New Delhi is in touch with Qatar authorities and will continue to extend all legal and consular support to them. External Affairs Minister, Dr S Jaishankar, also met the family members of 8 veteran navy officers on October 30,” he had disclosed.
Bagchi advised the media not to speculate anything keeping in view the sensitive nature of the case.
Former officers of the Indian Navy were sentenced to death by a court in Qatar on October 26. However, the charges against the officers were made public. The veteran navy officers who were awarded the death penalty include Captain Navtej Singh Gill, Captain Saurabh Vasisht, Commander Purenendu Tiwari, Captain Birendra Kumar Verma, Commander Sugunakar Pakala, Commander Sanjeev Gupta, Commander Amit Nagpal and Sailor Ragesh, according to media reports.
As per media reports the eight former officers worked for Dahra Global Technologies and Consulting Services, a company engaged in training Qatari navy personnel. Last August, they were picked up by Qatari intelligence authorities and incarcerated in Doha. The officers were accused of spying on the Gulf nation’s secretive program to obtain Italian-made, high-tech submarines coated with metamaterials that make their detection by adversaries difficult.