Skip to main content

India vows to free its ex-navy personnel on Qatar death row

India’s foreign minister on Monday said the country would “make all efforts” to secure the release of eight ex-navy personnel sentenced to death by a court in Qatar, reportedly for spying for Israel.

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said he had met the families of the detained Indians and told them the government “attaches the highest importance” to their case.

Indian media report the eight — among them former high-ranking and decorated officers, including captains who once commanded warships — were arrested in Doha in August 2022.

In a post on social media, Jaishankar said that he fully shared “the concerns and pain of the families”, and that the “government will continue to make all efforts to secure their release”.

Qatar has not commented on the case and the charges have not been made public.

India’s navy chief, Admiral R. Hari Kumar, told reporters on Monday that “every effort” was being made by the government to “get relief for our personnel”.

The sentences were only revealed last week when India’s foreign ministry said it was “shocked” at the case.

The eight men were employees of Al Dahra, a Gulf-based company that offers “complete support solutions” to the aerospace, security and defence sectors, according to its website.

The Hindu newspaper reported the men were spying for a “third country”, while the Times of India has said that “various reports claimed they were accused of spying for Israel”.

Israel’s government has not commented on the case.

Meetu Bhargava, the sister of one of the men, dismissed the allegations.

“My brother is 63 years old… Why would he spy for Israel? Why would he do anything like this at his age?” Bhargava was quoted as saying by the Indian Express daily.

She said she would seek the “personal intervention” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Last week, the Indian foreign ministry had said it would take up the verdict with Qatari authorities and would continue to “extend all consular and legal assistance” to the prisoners.

Qatar rarely carries out executions, and the Gulf state has previously said a death sentence is equivalent to a life sentence.

According to Amnesty International, the country executed one condemned Nepali migrant worker in 2020, after a 20-year hiatus.

New Delhi shares historically friendly ties with Doha, a key supplier of natural gas to India. More than two-thirds of Qatar’s 2.8 million population are migrant workers, and many of them are Indian citizens.

Qatar, which hosts a political bureau for Hamas and has provided financial aid to Gaza, has been linked to mediation efforts for a prisoner exchange between the Palestinian group and Israel.



from The Dawn News - Home https://ift.tt/jLQnvMs
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ailing Pope Francis to embark on Asia trip, his longest ever, in September

Pope Francis will travel to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore from September 2-13, the Vatican said on Friday, announcing his first overseas trip of the year and the longest of his 11-year papacy. The Asia trip has been on the papal agenda for some time, but there had been doubts on whether the 87-year-old pontiff would embark on it given his increasing frailty, with a record of skipping engagements due to health problems. His last international journey was a two-day stay in Marseille, France in September. In November, he pulled out of a trip to the COP28 climate conference in Dubai because of a lung inflammation . Francis is now scheduled to be in Jakarta between Sept 3-6, Port Moresby and Vanimo between Sept 6-9, Dili September. 9-11 and Singapore Sept 11-13, his spokesman said in a statement. Vietnam, which had been suggested by the pope and Vatican officials as a possible further destination during the nearly two-week long Asia trip, was not mentioned. In ...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘A war out there’: Maple Leafs survive shootout thriller in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — Whew. They needed this one, even if they didn’t wholly deserve it. For a Monday night in Salt Lake City, the stakes felt unusually high for the sagging, road-weary Toronto Maple Leafs .  Heading into their inaugural game at Delta Center, the Leafs had dropped three straight, blown a couple leads, slipped out of first place, and  distracted  the fan base by propositioning their best player with a trade.  Worse: Their process hasn’t been tight for a couple weeks. Mistakes have crept in. Speed is giving their defence issues. And their razor-sharp goaltenders have begun to look human. Head coach Craig Berube held an intense team meeting Sunday, following Saturday’s 7-4 outclassing in Denver. Multiple players spoke up. Captain Auston Matthews said they’d reached look-in-the-mirror time. “The really bad games have a good way of being the biggest learning experiences,” thoughtful goaltender Joseph Woll said, following Monday’s slump-snuffing, nail-b...
Post a Comment
Read more

A diary of (near) default - 2023 was a year of economic uncertainty in Pakistan

Despite having little in common, even our political parties could agree on one thing: Pakistan’s economic situation was dire in 2023. The year saw Pakistan go through a long and rocky road to finding some semblance of economic stability — if it can even be called that — while weathering political and social turmoil. Pakistanis also experienced a double whammy this year: the one-two punches of the worst economic crisis in decades and all-time high inflation. Add to that the gut punch of the aftermath of the catastrophic floods of 2022 began to settle in. Flood victims receive boiled rice from relief workers, after taking refuge on a motorway, following rains and floods during the monsoon season in Charsadda, Pakistan on August 27, 2022 — Reuters In 2023, according to the World Bank , over 39.4 per cent of the population fell below the poverty line, which means over 12.5 million people are living in meagre conditions. Additionally, 8.5 million people face acute food insecurity due ...
Post a Comment
Read more