Seven of the eight former members of the Indian Navy returned to their country in the early hours of Monday after being placed on death row for espionage on behalf of Israel in Qatar over three and a half months ago.
Last year, the Court of Appeal in Qatar on December 28 commuted the death penalty of eight navy officials and sentenced them to jail terms for varying durations.
The navy officials included Captain Navtej Singh Gill, Captain Saurabh Vashisht, Commander Purenendu Tiwari, Captain Birendra Kumar Verma, Commander Sugunakar Pakala, Commander Sanjeev Gupta, Commander Amit Nagpal and Sailor Rajesh.
The navy officials, who were arrested in August 2022, were senior employees of Dahra Global Technologies and Consulting Services, a company advising on a Qatari program aimed at obtaining high-tech Italian-made submarines that could evade radar detection.
The organisation which had utilised around 75 Indian nationals, mostly former naval force staff, shut down in May 2023.
After a few months of detainment, Qatari officials revealed that the men were spying on the country’s secret submarine program for Israel.
In October 2023, the navy officials were given death sentences by Qatar’s Court of First Instance in a case of suspected espionage.
