Appellate court of Qatar to consider appeal from two convicted Russian citizens

Qatar's appellate court on Wednesday will start examining the appeals of the defence of the two Russian citizens sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of assassinating in Doha of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, an emissary of the Chechen separatists, the court press-secretary told RIA Novosti over the telephone from Doha, the capital of Qatar.

He said that the session would consider an appeal request and its motives submitted by the head of the defence of the Russians on the Qatari side, lawyer Muhsin al-Suweidi.

The press-secretary was unable to say precisely how long it would take to examine the matter.

On the night of February 18-19, Qatari secret services arrested in Doha three Russian citizens who were on a business assignment in Qatar. They were charged with the premeditated murdering of Yandarbiyev, who on February 13 was killed when a Toyota Land Cruiser bomb car was blown up. One of the detained, first secretary of the Russian embassy in Qatar, who had diplomatic immunity, was released and in March returned to Russia.

The head of defence of the Russians on the Qatari side, lawyer Muhsin al-Suweidi, after a trial held on June 30, told the local media that his defendants were not guilty and that the verdict "contains no legal proof" of their involvement in the crime.

Russia's Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov said in a statement that Moscow would use political and diplomatic channels to get the Russians back home.

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