Qatar condemned the incident soon after it happened with Qatari officials apologising on multiple occasions.
Australia’s Federal Court on Wednesday dismissed a case filed against Qatar Airways by five Australian women over the 2020 incident at the Hamad International Airport during which they were strip-searched.
The incident occurred when a newborn baby girl was found abandoned in a restroom at a HIA terminal in 2020. Upon discovery of the baby, 13 Australian women among others were taken off a Qatar Airways flight as security scrambled to find the mother.
The women say they were then subjected to an alleged “non-consensual” invasive medical examination in an effort to find the baby’s mother. Investigations found that the mother proceeded to board a flight after discarding the baby.
Sources told Doha News in 2021 that the baby was taken to Qatar’s Orphans Care Center (Dreama), where authorities have ensured she is taken care of.
In 2022, the five women sought damages over the alleged “unlawful physical contact”, false imprisonment and the mental health impacts following the incident.
Federal Court Justice John Halley rejected the case against Qatar Airways as the women were not searched on the aircraft itself, but rather in ambulances on the tarmac. The airline’s staff were also not involved in the searches.
The judge noted that the applicants were unable to bring forth a claim against the airline per the Montreal convention.
However, Halley said that the women can instead seek damages from the airport’s operator, Matar, for negligence.
“The proposition that Qatar Airways was able to exert any relevant control over the officers of the MOI [Ministry of Interior] conducting the police operation or the nurse in the ambulance can fairly be characterised as ‘fanciful, trifling, implausible, improbable, tenuous or one that is contradicted by all the available documents or other materials’,” the judgment said, as quoted by The Guardian Australia.
Marque Lawyers’ Damian Sturzaker, representing the women, said he is reviewing the court’s decision “and to the extent that there are grounds will consider all avenues for appeal.” A case management hearing is scheduled for May 10, according to The Guardian.
In 2021, Doha News learned that one security official responsible for ordering the invasive searches was charged a hefty fine and given a six-month prison sentence which he then appealed, but was upheld by the Qatari courts.
Qatar was quick to condemn the incident as Qatari officials apologised on multiple occasions.
In a statement on October 28, 2020, Qatar’s Government Communications Office said Doha regretted “any distress or infringement on the personal freedoms of any traveller caused by” the action of those who carried out the searches.
Then in February 2022, Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani renewed Doha’s apology to the Australian women.
Responding to whether the women should be compensated, Sheikh Mohammed, also Qatar’s current prime minister, said that the matter had been settled, as the Sydney Herald reported at the time.
“As the government we are taking the full responsibility of this action, and we are penalising the people who were responsible for such a slip, which was a big mistake,” he said.
Sheikh Mohammed noted that “it was a single incident that happened and nothing happened after” it.
Despite this, Australia’s Transport Minister Catherine King cited the incident as one of the reasons why she rejected Qatar Airways’ proposal to double its flights to Australia.
