With unending delay in concluding the judicial process involving two Italian marines in India, Italy on Friday launched an international arbitration case against India within the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Italian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.
Italy will seek the immediate transfer of the marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone to the country pending the arbitration process.
No conclusion“The decision, which Parliament had called for, was taken at the conclusion of the necessary negotiating phase directly with India and facing the impossibility of reaching a solution to the dispute,” the statement added.
Italy also asserted that there will be an “all-out effort” to assert with the utmost determination the reasons underlying the “known position on the Italian jurisdiction and immunity.”
The goal, the statement said, “is the successful conclusion of the affair, which lasted far too long” and reiterated commitment to freeing the two marines.
In February 2012, the two marines, on board an Italian commercial vessel, shot and killed two Indian fishermen, mistaking them for pirates.
While India insists that the vessel was in Indian territorial waters and therefore should be tried by Indian jurisdiction, Italy claims the incident took place in international waters and that the marines should therefore be tried in Italy or in an international court.
