UAE court extends date of hearing of 17 death row Indians to June 16

NEW DELHI - A United Arab Emirates (UAE) appellate court has extended the date of hearing of a case involving 17 Indians on death row for murdering a Pakistani national to June 16.

Earlier on April 8, Bindu Suresh Chettur, the Indian lawyer handling the case had filed an appeal awaiting the full file for defence to study the entire case.

Sources in the Ministry of external Affairs said on Wednesday that the court accepted the defence’s plea for a Punjabi interpreter for the convicts and postponed the hearing.

Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur had on April 4 said that the Union Government would provide the best legal aid assistance in the UAE to the 17 Indians.

The family members of the persons on death row had sought the Union Government’s assistance, and said that its intervention would help get the 17 people back to India.

The 17 people have been sentenced to death for killing a Pakistani man over an illegal alcohol business dispute in Sharjah in January 2009.

According to reports, about 50 people were involved in the fatal attack in which the Pakistani man was beaten to death with metal bars, but those sentenced to death, were found to have been the leaders.

Three other Pakistani nationals were also injured in the attack, but they survived.

This is the highest number of death sentence handed down at one time in the UAE. (ANI)