Amnesty International Reports on Conviction of Filipino Nationals by Qatar’s Court of Cassation

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On Monday 2nd May, Qatar’s Court of Cassation upheld the convictions of three Filipino nationals in relation to espionage. The Court upheld one life term and two sentences of 15 years’ imprisonment.

The next day Amnesty International published an article about the proceedings in Qatar in which the Deputy Director of their Middle and North Africa programme, James Lynch said that: “The court’s decision to uphold the convictions of these three men, after an unfair trial in which the authorities totally failed to investigate credible allegations of torture, is the latest demonstration of the deep flaws in Qatar’s criminal justice system, particularly as regards its treatment of migrant workers”.

According to intelligence received by Amnesty, one of the three men whose sentence was upheld yesterday: Ronaldo Lopez Ulep, is alleged to have experienced repeated bouts of physical and psychological torture during the initial eight months of his detention. Ulep was then allegedly forced to sign a document written in Arabic, a language he could not read, which was later presented in court as a “confession”.

Click the following link to read about this story in more detail on the Amnesty International website:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/qatar-upholding-torture-tainted-convictions-exposes-deep-flaws-in-justice-system/

Image source: 5pillarsuk.com

Text source: www.amnesty.org (3rd May 2016)

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