Qatar Court Rejects Convicted Russian Agents’ Appeal

Last week an appeals court in Qatar turned down the bid of two convicted Russian intelligence officers to have overturned the life prison sentences which they had received at the end of June for the February assassination of former Chechen separatist Zelimkhan Yandarbiev. The Itar-Tass news agency reported on July 29 that the two convicts’ lawyers are nevertheless seeking to have them returned to Russia.

Unnamed sources in Qatar told Itar-Tass that the two Russians are being treated decently in prison. “The convicted Russians are kept in a detached villa,” wrote the news agency, “a kind of private club having interior and exterior guards and service personnel. They are isolated from each other, but are at liberty to meet embassy officials and walk for recreation in the yard of the villa enclosed with a fence.”