Filipino in Qatar escapes death sentence
A death sentence handed to a Filipino in Qatar for spying was reduced on appeal by a Doha court on Sunday to life imprisonment.
Two other sentences of life imprisonment against another pair of defendants, also from the Philippines, were reduced at the same time by Qatar's Court of Appeal to 15 years in jail.
One of the men sentenced to serve 15 years has been named as Ronaldo Lopez Ulep.
All three had been convicted last year on charges of espionage and passing on Qatar military and economic secrets to the Philippines government.
The unnamed defendant who was originally sentenced to death is likely to spend up to 25 years in prison.
He worked as a supervisor at Qatar Petroleum. The other two defendants worked for the Qatar Air Force.
At the time of their conviction it was alleged that the two men working for the air force supplied information to the third man for cash.
Following Sunday's brief hearing, the Philippines ambassador to Qatar, Wilfred C. Santos, said the reduction in sentences was "welcome" but a further appeal may take place.
"We welcome this development and we will continue to monitor the case," he said. "We are willing to exhaust all legal avenues."
Manila has "emphatically" denied spying on Qatar. All three men have been detained in Qatar since 2010.
The case has raised concerns among rights groups, which question the convictions and allege the three men have been tortured while being detained.
Amnesty International alleges Lopez Ulep spent four years in solitary confinement and was convicted "on the basis of a 'confession' he was forced to sign, even though it was written in Arabic and he could not read it".
Ahead of Sunday's hearing, Amnesty released a blog from the 17-year-old daughter of Lopez Ulep, who said her father was dragged away from their Doha home in April 2010 and the family have not seen him since.
She said investigators took laptops, photos and the family's savings hidden in a safe.
The teenager, who is now in the Philippines, urged the Qatari authorities to release her father and "return what they took from us for the past five years".
Santos said Manila knew about the allegations of torture.
"We are aware of these and are taking note of this," he said.
Relatives of the defendants were also at court but refused to comment afterwards. [AFP]
Photo courtesy of Huffington Post
I believe in every religion there will be someone who shows discrimination towards other religion. I request everyone not to see other religion as a theft because of one person. We all are one race called
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Do what is right and live with what you have.......
jasonjay25: When it comes to sharing an accommodation and tenancy and food, I agree with you. However, when a mafia wants to control job market and allows jobs to its own nationals or to people from its own province as in the case of Keralites irrespective whether they are qualified for the job or not, then it is total different story. That is just what is taking place, and other nationals in the competition are getting to notice it. You have made it your choice simply because when you are in the hiring position, you do not want any other national other than your own to earn here. It is as simply as that!
hahaha. the argument here is already out of the topic. well, in posting an ad, it would be best to be specific with the qualifications. if you are looking for a filipino tenant, employee, worker, etc. then mention the nationality in the ads so that other nationalities need not bother to call and gets disappointed. its your choice.
bla bla bla
if you ask me the Filipinos are the most raciest people in the world, i would say i prefer to say.
when you just see the adds they just use to put kabayans only, filipinos only or only filipino.
what kind of people are they and what are they thinking of ?
i am not here to hurt anyone's feeling or to talk about bad thinks about a national.
what i am saying is to just stop being so racist. i don't know why Qatar needs such a nationality always giving some troubles.
i am tired of these racist people, specially Filipinos.
I do agree with acchabaccha and Fatima, muslims in India are descriminated, just recently there was an incident where a muslim graduate was denied job for being muslim. What the hell is going on come on ...........it this secularism or what ? And when we muslim try our luck in gulf are faced by same circumstances. I feel sorry to say, but it is a fact .
fathima_hamna: If the top management is of Christians or Hindus, an email to them would have no effect. In fact it would give happiness internally that the had successfully hurt a person. I have faced this discrimination at two interviews here. At the first interview, the HR was not advised of my arrival for over 30 minutes since the lady receptionist saw I did not have a "flat nose." The "late arrival" went against me. The second interview went very well even with the MD and I was heading for toward getting appointed. But then just when I was moving out of that office, a driver with a "flat nose" approached me very quietly and very politely asked me, "Sir, are you a Christian?" I did not get the job! I just wish the Muslims would wake up now, unite and help other Muslims get jobs irrespective of nationality. Yes, if the government puts in a law that HR departments in all companies must be managed by Muslims, the Mafia of non-Muslim groups will face a setback in their plans and actions and may even collapse.
I am glad : )
its going well @zaheer_seyyed, as accabach pointed about the Mafia's I had to start my own business, alhamdullilah, its running well now..
@accabach, you have seen it in S arabia, because of the freedom for indian there, but in Qatar now Indian Visa's are limited so that is good for others and us..
so how is your startup business @fathima_hamna
If we can open a new topic and start our discussion , at-least we can try to bring this to consideration of Qataris, so we can save future generation of Qatar expats who are not from India, I have been for an interview for a most popular arab company in Qatar, but my first impression about the interviewer is negative (an indian), I wanted to slap him on his face for wasting my time, but I send an email to the owner of the company and he replied me would take necessary action, so donot give up hereafter, if there is such problem, directly send an email to the owner of the company or bring it to the consideration of the manager (arab), so we can save our stability in qatar
@acchabaccha, In this millennium world, now many people has understood this (specially suadi arabia knows this) , they cannot play in arab countries as before, specially I hate Indians, if you have been to interview with pile of certificates and experience, assume you are more than eligible for the position , but unfortunately interviewer is an Indian, you can only expect call back for the position 0.01%, you will understand it in the way interviewer ask you questions , they will first see whether they can give chance for their nation, if they have visa problem etc.. then only they will give chance for rest, I hate this kind of people in my life.
So atleat hereafter for highest managerial, HR position should be given in Muslims hand, I don't talk about Indian who are really qualified for such position, but most of them come in relationship based without enough qualification or experience, an educated wise man will never think such cheap way irrespective of nation/..
I am not pin pointing and separating religion I donot want to rise a racist topic, end of the day we all are human, so be an educated human being or leave the country giving the chance to others..
fathima_hamna: What you have stated is very true. The non-Muslims come here, set up a mafia and then keep Muslims out of jobs. I have seen this taking place in so many companies in S Arabia. Just recently, a friend of mine in Riyadh who was with a company for over 18 years lost his job when a Christian Finance Manager got appointed in the company. What does such actions lead to. Hatred against the other lot especially when religion becomes the yardstick of measuring a persons performance. This is true of not just Keralites but also of another nationality which openly and shamelessly goes about advertising that applications only from their nationals would get accepted. Then they go about pointing fingers at us calling Muslims racists!
As long as Qatar don't remove its Sponsorship system and visa limitation , other nationalities have chance, otherwise Indian (Keralies) will never give chance for rest of the nationalities, Number of Indians are increased and ineligible are appointed on highest positions in government sectors and private sectors, they never prefer to give chance for other nationalities or even their nationality who are Muslim, I have seen biggest racist by my eye who are from india and appointed as HR manager etc.. and most of them are non muslim, I am not racist, but I talk about reality , that is why India tried to limit gulf visa based on Indian education level, so they taught in that way they can reduce Indian Muslims coming to gulf as muslims are less educated, but unfortunately Saudi arabia firgured it out..
mjaqumbay03 & ofw247: Open your eyes and look beyond your nose and you will see much. I managed a Perfumery & Cosmetics warehouse of a major company in Dammam which had a record of zero pilferage. When the management realized this, the General Manager, a British national, sent me to fix up the Jeddah and Riyadh warehouses which were being run by people from your country. Both these warehouses had many problems with pilferage being the major one. When I entered at the Jeddah warehouse, the Filipinos there joined hands and went on a non-cooperation move. They had already received messages from their Kabayans in Dammam of the type of manager I was. The head office got to know about this non-cooperation. I was told to take the next flight home. Then -- heads rolled. The first to go was the leader. At another company in Riyadh which was an Italian company and as such the top management were all from Italy (and of course were Roman Catholics), the Filipino group in the company was involved in rampant theft with items getting shipped back home. Since it was a telecommunication company, the most attractive item was cables. A Filipino car mechanic in this company even succeeded in removing and shipping during the Eid holidays an entire Toyota pickup engine that had been recently overhauled, replacing it with one from the second-hand shops (known as Tashliya). But since the management always looked the other way and took no action when they got hear such incidents, other nationals learnt to keep their mouths shut. It was at this company I got to learn that there existed a cargo company in Riyadh managed by Filipinos that collected items during the late hours of the night from the staff accommodation so that other nationals staying at the accommodation could not get to see what was getting shipped out. In Doha, the management of a company had three Filipinos behind bars as they were caught stealing cable wire. Another, in the same company was sent home as he was a not just a regular drinker but was also involved in bootlegging at the camp. Do you want anymore examples of your "proven" honesty? I have a list of them. Having said all that, there is no doubt a very good quality among the Filipinos and I really appreciate that. They blindly support each and every person from their country as best as they can. That is why one gets to see ads saying "Filipinos only," and not because they are super workers, or honest workers, or loyal workers or anything else for that matter.
Poor man.
acchabaccha & zaheer_sayyed you guys stick to the news topic! WITH JOB RELATED ADS..sorry we do best! That's proven! For Accomodation, we are cleaner!
I'm thinking of "what would they do with those information about military and economic..?" Not even single countries in South East Asia has problem with Qatar, Qatar has been so humble to those countries and helping many sectors. Just last week I read in Gulf Times Qatar help 50 Million Dollars to Indonesia for sheltering thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees. If Philippines would like to challenge Qatar in regards of economic and military, HELLOOOWW... Please look at your neighboring countries first, Philippines even left behind by Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Thailand in economics and military.. Proof by the number of overseas workers which they have almost as much as Indian, it means their economic are weak..
That can't be true, since these brothers are being accused of espionage
Why? Is Qatar reserved for just Filipinos?
The others should live in another country.
yeah I don't like when in accomodation ads they say Filipino only for majority of the ads and rest Keralite only .. what about others ..where should they live .
ofw247: When ads appear at QL "All Jobs" section which openly and shamelessly state "only Filipinos" or "Filipinos only" or "Filipinos preferred" is that not RACISM? I am sure you know well about this. Why don't you allow other nationalities an opportunity to earn here even if they are better qualified than your own nationals? Are your people not being Racists?
So the story should also not mention Manila or Philippines ?
Who the hell posted this?! QL bloggers seem to show racism to Filipinos! As we all noticed from previous post! When a Filipino is involved in any anomalies,you mention the nationality for the others never! You just say ASIAN, ARAB etc.
Be fair and square!
wrong photo!!!
If they carried out espionage, then I have no sympathy for them. All countries deal with spies harshly.