“Each one of the 19 released fishermen has been fined 2,000 Qatari riyals. The case of the remaining nine men has been adjourned to Jan. 16 next year,” said Jaafar Al-Safwani, deputy chairman of the Fishermen’s Association of the Eastern Province.
Al-Safwani commended the efforts of the Saudi Embassy in Doha to get the release of the fishermen who have been languishing in Qatari jail over the past five months.
The final judgment of the case against the fishermen was originally posted for Dec. 2, but it was postponed for a week because all the defendants were not present in the courtroom on that day.
The court had released four boats involved in the violation of territorial waters on Nov. 4 and the remaining two boats on Nov. 10.
The owners of the six boats had said on an earlier occasion that the prolonged imprisonment of the fishermen was not commensurate with what the fishermen did when they strayed into the neighboring country's waters by mistake.
