Marines case: UN tribunal asks India, Italy to suspend court proceedings

According to an NDTV report, India’s representative told the UN tribunal that the marines “used automatic weapons without warning and shot the fishermen in the head and stomach…This case is not covered by Article 97 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea but (is) rather a double murder at sea”.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a statement: “We have just received the order from the global Tribunal on the Law of the Seas in the Enrica Lexie incident in which Italy had approached the Tribunal for two provisional measures: that India should refrain from taking or enforcing any judicial or administrative measures against the two Italian marines and from exercising any form of jurisdiction over the incident; and for the return of Sgt”.

A UN-linked tribunal has ordered a halt to all legal proceedings in the case of two Italian marines accused of killing two Indian fishermen in 2012.

Following a public hearing held at the global Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg on 10 and 11 August, final submissions by India and Italy were handed in, with the tribunal providing 24 August as the date for its ruling.

However, India wants the men tried in an Indian court.

India has argued against the suspension of proceedings, saying justice for the fishermen’s families is being delayed “by Italy’s intransigence”.

The court decided by 15 judges’ votes to six that Italy and India should suspend all proceedings which might aggravate or extend the dispute until the arbitration tribunal rules on the issue, tribunal president Judge Vladimir Golitsyn said in the ruling.

Putting a positive spin on the move, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said it was “a useful decision” that the destiny of the marines was no longer in India’s hands. Massimiliano Latorre is now in Italy and Salvatore Girone is living in the Italian embassy in New Delhi.

Italy had asked the court to allow Girone to be returned to Italy from India and for Latorre, who was granted temporary leave by India for medical treatment past year , to remain in his country.

In April 2012, Rome paid $190,000 to each of the victims’ families as compensation.