Indian ambassador met ex-Navy personnel on death row in Qatar: MEA

New Delhi: A court in Qatar will soon hold the third hearing on an appeal filed by eight former Indian Navy officers challenging the death sentences awarded to them by a lower court in the West Asian nation.

“I think the next hearing is coming up soon. We are closely following the matter and extending all legal and consular assistance (to the eight former Indian Navy officers incarcerated in Qatar),” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, told journalists in New Delhi on Thursday.

Vipul, New Delhi’s envoy to Doha, met with all the former Indian Navy officers after the Government of Qatar granted the Embassy of India in Doha consular access to the eight incarcerated Indians.

The Embassy of India in Doha had also been granted consular access to the former Indian Navy officers earlier.

The former Indian Navy officers, Captain Navtej Singh Gill, Captain Birendra Kumar Verma, Captain Saurabh Vasisht, Commander Amit Nagpal, Commander Purnendu Tiwari, Commander Sugunakar Pakala, Commander Sanjeev Gupta and Sailor Ragesh, had been arrested in Doha by the Qatari intelligence service on August 30, 2022.

They were employees of the Al Dahra company, which had been providing training and various services to the security agencies and defence forces of Qatar. The company had over 70 Indians, predominantly former Indian Navy officials, on its staff. It had suspended its operations in Qatar last May, several months after its officials had been imprisoned.

Qatar's Court of First Instance pronounced the verdict on October 26, awarding the death sentence to all eight. New Delhi stated that it was ‘deeply shocked’ by the verdict.

Though neither Doha nor New Delhi has officially made the charges against the eight Indian Navy personnel public, sources indicate that the Government of Qatar accused them of espionage, specifically of passing intelligence to Israel regarding a project to build advanced submarines for the Qatari Emiri Navy.

They moved the Court of Appeal last month, challenging the capital punishment awarded to them by the lower court.

“As you know, we filed an appeal that is from the families and the detainees. Two hearings have since been held. One, I think on November 30 and the other on November 23,” Bagchi said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani met in Dubai on the sideline of the COP 28 (UN climate conference) last week. “We had a good conversation on the potential of bilateral partnership and the well-being of the Indian community in Qatar,” Modi posted on X after he met with Al-Thani. He, however, did not clarify whether he had raised the issue of the eight former Indian Navy officers on death row in Qatar during his meeting with the Emir of the West Asian nation.