‘Chennai Six’ have at least a week in jail before judgement, family says

THE TRIAL of the so-called Chennai Six has now ended but the British men face another week before receiving a judgement, according to the family of one of the accused.

Loved ones of the ex-soldiers in prison in Chennai, formerly Madras, India, have been campaigning for their release since they were arrested in October 2013.

The six, who a British lawyer says are victims of a miscarriage of justice, were first jailed on weapons charges while working as security guards on ships to combat piracy in the Indian Ocean.

Their latest appeal finished yesterday in a hearing which saw the captain of the vessel

of Ukraine, repatriated. The six are now set to receive a judgement on Monday next week.

Lisa Dunn, sister of 31-yearold Nick Dunn, from Ashington, Northumberland, said: “Fingers crossed this is it. If it goes in our favour we hope that the Indian Government will right the wrongs that they got in the first place. We don’t want a repeat of what we got in 2014.”

The five other men are Billy Irving, 37, of Oban, Scotland, John Armstrong, 30, of Wigton, Cumbria, Nicholas Simpson, 47, of Catterick in North Yorkshire, Ray Tindall, 42, of Chester and Paul Towers, 54, originally from Bootle before moving to Pocklington in East Yorkshire.

Earlier this year, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the UK would “leave no stone unturned” in securing their release.

In 2013, the Indian coastguard boarded their vessel, the

and arrested the ex-soldiers for taking weapons into India’s territorial waters.

The charges were initially quashed when the men argued that the weapons were lawfully held for anti-piracy purposes and their paperwork, which was issued by the UK Government, was in order.

But a lower court reinstated the prosecution and they were convicted in January last year and sentenced to five years in jail.

Since then, there has been a series of appeals as the families of the ex-soldiers navigate the Indian legal system.