A court in Qatar on Wednesday adjourned a hearing in the case of eight former Indian navy officers jailed on charges that have not been made public, after their defence lawyer informed the judge that he was yet to receive all the documents from the prosecution.
The first hearing in their trial was held on March 29. But even as speculation has swirled about the accusations against the Navy veterans, family sources said they had not been informed of the formal charges under which the trial is being held, either by Qatari authorities or by Indian officials who have had consular access with the prisoners.
On April 6, the MEA spokesman said the Indian government would provide legal assistance to the men.
“We understand that the case has been referred to the court by the public prosecution. The first hearing was held on March 29, which was also attended by the… defence lawyer as well as our officials,” spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a briefing that day.
Family members of the jailed men were hoping to learn about the charges at the second hearing on Wednesday. But the hearing was adjourned after the embassy-appointed lawyer told the court that he could frame his defence only if all the documents of the case were made available to him, family sources said.
The date for the next hearing is not known yet.
Eight months have passed since the men, who held senior management positions at a company working closely with the Qatar Navy, were bundled out of their homes by Qatari intelligence officials on the night of August 30 last year. Their families are still no wiser about how these former Indian Navy officers went from being the leaders of a favoured company to solitary cells in a Doha prison.
The case has presented a challenge for Indian diplomacy in a region where Delhi boasts of “better than ever before” relations. Some 8,00,000 Indian expatriates live and work in Qatar. While many have been in conflict with the law and several deportations take place every year, this is the first case of this nature with a speculated security dimension that is taxing the bilateral relationship in its 50th year.
All that family members have learnt so far is that charges were filed against the men individually in March, and that they were made to sign on documents.
“Keeping them in solitary confinement for more than seven months for no fault of theirs is nothing but rigorous imprisonment. Indian legal assistance is now required for repatriation or deportation as there has to be some limits to their suffering,” an anguished family member told The Indian Express on Wednesday.
The eight veterans – three of them retired from the Navy as captains, four as commanders, one was a sailor – were working at Dahra Global Technologies and Consultancy Services that was providing training, logistics and maintenance services to the Qatari Emiri Naval Force. The eight men were recently dismissed by the company, which is now renamed itself Dahra Global. It has also severed the contracts of its other Indian employees, numbering around 50.
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