ICJ to hold public hearing of Kulbhushan Jadhav’s case on May 15

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hold public hearings in the case pertaining to the conviction of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav on May 15, a press release issued by the United Nation’s judicial body said.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, will hold public hearings on Monday 15 May 2017, at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court, in the proceedings instituted by the Republic of India on 8 May 2017 against the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The hearings will be devoted to the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by India, the ICJ’s press release added.

The May 15 hearings will be conducted in two phases with the ICJ hearing India’s observations in the first phase and Pakistan’s observations in the second, the ICJ’s press release said.

The hearings will be streamed live, the statement further added.

India has moved the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to stay the death sentence handed to self-confessed Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan. According to a statement issued by ICJ on Tuesday, India filed a petition with the court urging it to suspend Jadhav’s sentence and declare that it was arrived at “in brazen defiance of Vienna Convention rights”.

The petition states that Delhi was not informed of Jadhav’s detention until long after his arrest and that Pakistan failed to inform the Indian spy of his rights. It also accused Pakistani authorities of violating the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by denying India consular access to Jadhav.

Jadhav, who was caught in Balochistan in 2016 and has confessed to fomenting terrorism in Pakistan – was handed down the death penalty in an unprecedented decision that instantly sparked a bitter diplomatic spat between the two countries.

He was arrested on March 3 last year during an operation in Mashkel area of Balochistan. A few weeks later, the army released his recorded confessional statement in which he admitted that he was working for the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s primary foreign intelligence agency, to stoke unrest and instability in Pakistan.

Source: The Express Tribune