“We have recently decided to set up the fund and have also requested the Ministry of Finance to contribute Rs 500,000 to the fund,” Sthaneswore Devkota, executive director of FEPB, told Republica on Thursday.
Amid sporadic cases of capital punishment against Nepali workers abroad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) wrote to the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM) to take the initiative for establishing the revolving fund.
Devkota said the revolving fund will comprise a permanent amount of Rs 500,000, which can be used to extend legal assistance for saving workers on death row.“However, a permanent source for the fund is yet to be ascertained,” Devkota said.
The fund will first be used to assist Chandra Shekhar Yadav of Belaha-7 of Siraha, who is facing the death penalty in Qatar for allegedly murdering an Indonesian woman. The murder case is now sub-judice at Qatar´s supreme court after an appellate court uphold the death sentence handed down by a lower court.
“This fund will be kept under the control of FEPB and will be made available to needy workers through MoFA ,” Devkota added.
A Qatari primary court had handed down a death sentence to Yadav in December 2003, and the verdict was upheld by an appellate court in November 2006. In December 2008 the supreme court of Qatar decided to send the case back to the appellate court for reconsideration.
In June 2008, the appellate court had delivered a verdict slapping the death penalty again.
Yadav has been charged with murder in collusion with another Nepali, Buddi Man Gurung, and two Indians.
Then Labor Minister Ramesh Lekhak, during a visit to major labor destinations in the Gulf last year, had requested the Qatari authorities to waive the charge against Yadav.
Yadav and the Indian nationals- Unni Krishna Mahadevan and Moni Kandhan Shreedharan- were handed the death sentence for their involvement in the murder of a 30-year-old Indonesian woman.
In the first case of humanitarian legal assistance the life of Dolma Sherpa, a Nepali woman sentenced to death in Kuwaiti for the murder of a Filipino woman, was saved with financial support from different human rights organizations and non-resident Nepalis and seed money from MoFA. Later, her death penalty was revoked after the arrangement of blood money for the victim´s family.
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