QATAR: MAN GIVEN DEATH PENALTY SEEKS RETRIAL

a man sentenced to death in absentia by a criminal court in Doha, Qatar, filed a plea for reopening the trial. Qatari law permits reopening of a trial if a convict has been tried in absentia. The man was convicted with two others for smuggling drugs into the country. The man, however, returned and filed a plea through his lawyer that the trial be reopened. He and two of his accomplices were convicted for smuggling 159kg of hashish in a speedboat.