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The Italian Marine’s case: India lose case against Italy running from long quest for justice
The long quest for justice for the two Kerala fishermen shot dead by Italian marines from the Enrica Lexie about 20.5 nautical miles off India’s coast in February 2012 has ended in disappointment. However, the court ordered Italy to pay compensate to India “for loss of life, physical injuries, material damage to the vessel and moral harm suffered by the commander and crew of the fishing vessel”.
Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre were arrested in February 2012 for shooting the two fisherman. They said the killings were accidental as they mistook the fisherman for pirates and fired warning shots while on duty on the Italian oil tanker “Enrica Lexie” off the southern Indian coast.
Girone and Latorre were later allowed to return pending the resolution of the dispute between the two states which was handed over to the permanent court of arbitration based in The Hague.
The court’s decision that the men should face trial in it lay, instead of in India, was hailed as victory by the Italian foreign ministry.
“Italy’s argument have prevailed after long years of the legal battles. Our two soldiers, Italian officials who were carrying out their duties, are immune from foreign justice,” Italy’s foreign minister Luigi di Maio wrote on Facebook.
“As per reports, it’s understood that the international tribunal has only upheld India’s conduct so far in the case as both India and Italy have jurisdictional right over the incident. But at the same time, the tribunal has held that the marines — Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre — have immunity as state officials and they can’t be tried in India,” said senior lawyer V J Mathew, who was counsel for Italian ship owner Dolphin Tankers in Supreme Court and Kerala High Court.
“An FIR was registered at Neendakara police station against the marines, charging them with murder. India’s main prayer was that it had jurisdiction over the case as the fishermen killed were Indian and the case must be tried as per Indian laws. Our prayer right from the beginning was that India has no legal right to try the marines as they were on board an Italian flagged vessel and only Italy has the right to proceed against them as per their laws,” he said. “Moreover, a compensation of 1 crore each has already been paid to the family of the deceased fishers,” Further he added.
Italy said it would now resume its own criminal proceedings on the case.
