Saudi Aramco Executive Jailed For 1 Week In Chamoli For Carrying Satellite Phone: Report

Fergus MacLeod, head of investor relations at Saudi Aramco, was on a yoga holiday in Chamoli when he was arrested on July 12 at his hotel in the Valley of Flowers National Park. 

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New Delhi: A senior executive at Saudi’s oil giant, Aramco was arrested in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district in July this year for using a satellite phone without prior permission from authorities, reported Financial Times. Fergus MacLeod, head of investor relations at the world’s largest oil exporter, was on a yoga holiday in Chamoli — a district which shares a part of it with the Line of Actual Control — when he was arrested on July 12 at his hotel in the Valley of Flowers National Park. 

The 62-year-old British executive was held in prison until July 18, the report stated. 

MacLeod was detained after the authorities picked up coordinates of the phone, which the executive said had turned on and off at his hotel but did not use while on the holiday with friends, some of whom were his colleagues from Saudi Aramco.  

Narendra Singh Rawat, a police officer in Chamoli, confirmed that MacLeod had been arrested. The executive had carried the phone “by mistake”, Rawat said, quoted by the Financial Times. 

“We sent a policeman to confirm that the man was carrying a satellite phone. It was confirmed. He was travelling to the Valley of Flowers and was detained from there,” Rawat was quoted by the Indian Express as saying. 

“He was arrested under sections of the Indian Telegraph Act and the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act. After the arrest was made, he was sent to the district jail where he stayed until July 18 before getting bail. On July 27, the case ended after he paid a fine of Rs 1,000,” he added. 

Meanwhile, MacLeod told the Financial Times that he was unaware of such ban and had passed through two Indian airports without being stopped by staff. 

After the 2008 Mumbai attacks where terrorists used satellite phones, it has been made illegal for foreign nationals to possess and operate satellite phones in India without government permission.