Death Sentence cut to life

2018-09-02

In a landmark judgment, Qatar’s Supreme Court yesterday reduced the death sentence handed down to three Asian nationals, including two Indian taxi drivers, to life sentence in the sensational “unidentified” housemaid murder case.

The proceedings of the case had started with the arrest of the trio in December 2003. The maid’s body was found in October that year at the Wakrah beach. While two of the three accused, Indians Sreedharan Manikantan and Mahadevan Unnikrishnan have been awarded a life sentence, Nepalese national Chandrasekhar Yadav has been given a 15-year sentence. He now has to serve the remaining part of eight years, according to inquiries made at the Nepalese embassy in Doha . All the convicts have been in jail for the last seven years.

The three Asians were picked up by the police for their alleged involvement in the murder of an unidentified Indonesian woman in October 2003, with whom they reportedly had contacts. Speaking to Gulf Times, the spokesperson for the law firm Abdulla Essa al-Ansari & Partners and Indian legal activist Nizar Kochery termed the case as an “extraordinary” one, having gone to the Supreme Court three times.