Qatar grants clemency to Indian military personnel sentenced to execution

India's Ministry of External Affairs has stated that a Qatari court has decided to pardon all eight Indian military officers detained in 2022 and later sentenced to death for spying in favour of Israel.

These are retired Indian naval officers who worked in Doha as contractors for Dahra Global Technologies and Consultancy Services, a private company registered in Oman, Caliber.Az reports.

The company provided consultancy services to Qatar in the field of submarine construction. In August 2022, retired Indian Navy officers and the head of the company were arrested. All of them had access to classified information related to Qatar's submarine construction programme and were believed by Qatari authorities to have passed this information to Israel.

The head of Dahra Global was released from custody back in November 2022 while the Indian nationals awaited trial. In October last year, a court sentenced all eight Indian military officers to capital punishment. After that, Indian Foreign Minister Subramaniam Jaishankar said that the authorities intend to seek the release of those sentenced to death.

According to media reports, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the fate of the retired officers with Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in early December on the sidelines of the COP28 climate summit. It was this meeting that led to the appellate court commuting the death penalty to long jail terms for all the accused as early as December. Now all charges against the military have been dropped. Seven of them have already arrived in India and the eighth is expected to return in the coming days.

#WATCH | Delhi: Qatar released the eight Indian ex-Navy veterans who were in its custody; seven of them have returned to India. pic.twitter.com/yuYVx5N8zR

— ANI (@ANI) February 12, 2024