New Delhi: The legal team of eight jailed former Indian Navy personnel was given 60 days to appeal against the ruling by Qatar's court of appeal, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday.
Last month, the Court of Appeal in Qatar commuted the death sentence handed down to the Indians and sentenced them to prison for varying durations. The verdict came weeks after the family members of the Indians filed an appeal against the earlier order by another court.
The Navy veterans were on October 26 given death sentences by Qatar's Court of First Instance.
Sixty days' time has been given to file an appeal against the order at Qatar's highest court, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a media briefing.
The men — Captain Navtej Singh Gill, Captain Saurabh Vasisht, Commander Purnendu Tiwari, Captain Birendra Kumar Verma, Commander Sugunakar Pakala, Commander Sanjeev Gupta, Commander Amit Nagpal and Sailor Ragesh — were working for a private company, Dahra Global, in their personal capacity, to oversee the induction of Italian U212 stealth submarines in the Qatari Emiri Naval Force. The Indian nationals were arrested in August last year reportedly in an alleged case of espionage. Neither the Qatari authorities nor New Delhi made the charges against the Indian nationals public.
