Lawyer Damian Sturzaker says his purchasers are in search of compensation after coping with a ‘very traumatic episode’.
Seven Australia-based ladies are planning to sue the federal government of Qatar for being pressured into invasive gynaecological examinations at Doha’s worldwide airport final yr, their lawyer has stated.
Damian Sturzaker, from Sydney-based Marque Legal professionals, stated on Monday that his purchasers had been in search of compensation “for the truth that they had been effected on the time and proceed to undergo”.
The ladies, who had been amongst a bunch of 13 Australians, had been ordered to disembark a Qatar Airways flight to Sidney and to be checked after a new child child was present in a plastic bag in a bin at a bathroom in one of many airport’s terminals in early October 2020.
“They’ve issues coping with what was a really traumatic episode,” he added.
9 or 10 different flights out of Doha had been equally delayed whereas ladies passengers had been searched, he added. The ladies stated they had been subjected to strip search in an ambulance parked on the tarmac.
Sturzaker stated he was not conscious of passengers on different flights taking authorized motion in opposition to Qatar over the episode.
“They need an apology from the Qatar authorities for his or her remedy and what they need and have been asking for fairly a very long time is that procedures are put in place in order that this gained’t occur once more,” Sturzaker added.
One of many lawyer’s purchasers, who declined to be named, informed the BBC that she was “subjected to essentially the most horrifically invasive bodily examination”.
“I used to be sure that I used to be both going to be killed by one of many many males that had a gun, or that my husband on the aircraft was going to be killed,” she stated in an announcement from her lawyer.
A Qatar authorities spokesman declined to remark, however referred to earlier statements. On the time of the incident, the Gulf nation’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Overseas Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani expressed his “deepest sympathies with the ladies impacted by the search on the airport” and renewed Qatar’s apology to them.
“The incident is taken into account a violation of Qatar’s legal guidelines and values,” he stated, including that the officers concerned had been referred to the general public prosecutor.
The ladies, aged from their early 30s to late 50s, would possible provoke authorized motion within the New South Wales state Supreme Court docket inside just a few weeks, Sturzaker stated. They haven’t specified the quantity of compensation that they’re in search of.
The Qatar authorities, the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority, in addition to the state-owned airline and airport, have been forwarded authorized recommendation that Australian courts had jurisdiction to listen to the case and that the claimants had been prone to win, Sturzaker stated.
Australian Federal Police knowledgeable the complainants final week {that a} single airport police officer had been fined and given a six-month suspended jail sentence for imposing the examinations, based on the lawyer.
The airline has denied legal responsibility whereas the Qatar authorities stated it was contemplating the ladies’s declare, Sturzaker stated.
“We don’t maintain out a lot hope in relation to something aside from a rejection of the declare,” Sturzaker stated, which means the declare would go to trial.