New Delhi: Eight Indian nationals detained in Qatar and previously sentenced to death by a court in the Gulf nation have been released, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said on Monday.
The men, employees of the security firm Dahra — a private company providing training to the Qatari Emiri Naval Forces — had been held in custody since August 2022.
Neither Qatar nor India detailed the official charges against the men, whose arrests made front-page headlines across the South Asian nation in 2022. It was widely reported then that the eight former Indian Navy officers were arrested after allegedly spying for Israel.
The ministry said on Monday that seven of the men have returned to India.
“The government of India welcomes the release of eight Indian nationals working for the Dahra Global company who were detained in Qatar … We appreciate the decision by the Emir of the State of Qatar to enable the release and home-coming of these nationals,” the ministry said.
India said in October it was “deeply shocked” after the Court of First Instance in Qatar sentenced the men to death, and New Delhi subsequently filed an appeal against the sentence.
In December, the Indian foreign ministry said its ambassador to Qatar had met the eight former Indian Navy officers, announcing later the same month that the Court of Appeal of Qatar had commuted their death penalty.
Several of the freed men thanked the Indian government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi while talking to reporters after their arrival in New Delhi on Monday morning, with at least three saying that their release would not have been possible without the premier’s “personal intervention.”
New Delhi and Doha have historically friendly ties, with India sourcing around 40 percent of its liquefied natural gas needs from Qatar, which is also home to hundreds of thousands of the Indian diaspora who send back a considerable share of foreign remittances.
Last week, the two countries signed a $78 billion deal to extend India’s LNG imports from Qatar until the end of 2048.
