On Christmas Day, Indians jailed in UAE miss family as prison exchange programme is delayed

Non-implementation of a prisoner exchanged agreement between the UAE and India has dashed the hopes of many Indian prisoners in UAE of serving the rest of their jail terms in their homeland. 

Despite signing the require forms, they will not be able to see their families back home this Christmas/New Year also.

Many of them are also unable to phone and greet their dear ones back home because they don’t have money to buy phone cards and philanthropists who used to give them phone cards occasionally have stopped the practice for the past two years.

Speaking to this reporter, Joseph Simon Silvester, 53, the longest serving Indian prisoner in the Al Aweer Central Jail, said he has been in jail for the past 25 years and two months now and he had been optimistic of being transferred to an Indian jail so that his siblings could at least to visit him there.

Out of the 1100 Indian prisoners in various jails in UAE, 380 are in Al Aweer. There is only on UAE national in an Indian jail, according to earlier reports.

A prisoner exchange agreement was signed between India and the UAE in November 2011 and the UAE approved it in May 2013.

The agreement was signed to allow prisoners to serve the rest of their sentences among their own people. While some Indian prisoners are reportedly ashamed to serve the balance of their jail term in their homeland, there are many who are keen to get the benefit of the prisoner exchange pact between the two countries.

Abdul Kareem, who is serving a life sentence in a UAE jail, was hoping that the prisoner exchange agreement will enable him to attend his second daughter’s wedding. The wedding was postponed in anticipation of the agreement. He also missed his first daughter’s wedding.

However, Joseph, who was sentenced to be shot dead, is not included in the list of prisoners eligible for exchange, and is getting ready for his next mercy petition. He was given the death sentence on December 23, 1990, two days before Christmas and since then, every Christmas brings to him horrible memories of the incident that led to the murder of his employer, a Syrian doctor, who was also running a boutique in Dubai.

Joseph,who used to work as a salesman of the boutique, had a dispute with his employer about salary and commission. That led to an argument and the death of the 45-year-old doctor.

He told this reporter: “This Christmas too I am in jail, awaiting death. Along with ten other Indian prisoners who were sentenced to death, I have spent the maximum time in Al Aweer Central jail. I have completed 25 years and two months in jail. I don’t have money to make an appeal.”

A former soldier, Joseph, 53, was sentenced to be shot dead, but since judicial executions have been stopped, his death sentence was not implemented.

“I used to share the cell with Paul George Nadar, who was released last year after his mercy petition was accepted. We spent more than 20 years together in jail and mastered at least 15 languages through interaction with other prisoners,” Joseph said.

“Paul George had killed nine members of a Pakistani family and was also sentenced to be shot dead. He was released on the basis of his repeated mercy petitions. I killed only one person and I too expect mercy,” he said.

Paul George Nadar was released after His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, accepted his mercy petition. He was the longest serving Indian prisoner in the UAE.

“One year and seven months after coming to the UAE, I had a dispute with my employer, a doctor, about my salary. It was a dispute about Dh 500 in the salary as per the labour contract. I was the salesman of a boutique in Dubai. The doctor was in his clinic and I went to meet him to discuss the dispute. We got into an argument and I hit his head with an ashtray. He later died due of brain haemorrhage.

“I did not go there intentionally to kill him. It happened during an argument when I lost my temper. When I saw him bleeding, I tried to give him water,” recollects Joseph. “I have been regretting my action for the past 25 years.”

“Two years before the death sentence, I was put in jail after Dubai Police arrested me for the doctor’s death,” he said. “I did not have Dh 70,000 to pay blood money as per the court verdict. I had been in UAE for only one year and seven months.  My salary for three months was pending when this incident happened. How could I pay Dh70,000 since there is no way of earning money in the jail?” asks Joseph.

He spends his time doing regular physical exercises, learning new languages and talking and playing with other prisoners.

“I am still waiting to be either released or killed,” Joseph added.  However, this Christmas, he will be speaking to his brothers and sisters who are working in the UAE.

“I am happy that Paul George Nadar is now free to celebrate Christmas with his family in Tamil Nadu. I hope that next year I will also be freed on humanitarian grounds,” said Joseph, adding that he did not have money for making an appeal.

He said there are about ten Indian prisoners like him in UAE, awaiting death sentence or deportation, who cannot benefit from the prisoner exchange agreement between the UAE and India.

About 800 Indian prisoners have signed up for the prisoner exchange and have submitted their forms as per a directive of the Indian mission here. Ambassador M K Lokesh recently said the implementation of the agreement is pending.

 Another Indian prisoner, who is serving a 20-year sentence for human trafficking, said he too was hoping to serve the rest of his prison term in India but is uncertain when this will happen.

“If I am allowed to serve the balance of my prison term in India, I can at least meet my family once in a while,” he said.

 

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