The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Monday began a four-day public hearing of the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017.
India moved the ICJ in May in 2017 against the “farcical trial” by the military court against 48-year-old Jadhav, a retired Indian Navy officer.
The first day of oral arguments concluded with India accusing Pakistan of “knowingly, wilfully and brazenly” flouting the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
Pakistan, on day two of the hearing, asked that India’s application to have the ICJ order Kulbhushan Jadhav’s release be dismissed as inadmissible.
Pakistan’s counsel Khawar Qureshi argued on Tuesday in a heated, and often personal presentation that repeatedly referenced Prime Minister Narendra Modi and accused India of engaging in “political theatre,” “grandstanding,” and presenting its case in “bad faith.”
Here are the live updates:
Oral arguments set to continue
Both India and Pakistan will get an hour-and-a-half each to present their final arguments. "Second round must not be a repetition of the first," said Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf on Tuesday, at the conclusion of the hearing on Day 2.
Jadhav's arrest and sentencing
Jadhav, a former naval officer, was arrested in 2016 and sentenced to death by Pakistan in April 2017 over allegations of espionage and abetting terror, after three-and-a-half months of trial.
In May that year, India filed an application to launch proceedings against Pakistan for “egregious violations” of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, accusing Pakistan of failing to comply with its obligations under Article 36 of that convention. It argued that Pakistan had failed to inform Jadhav of his rights and had denied him consular access, despite repeated requests for this to happen.
India also applied for provisional measures to stay the execution of Jadhav, arguing that without such a measure it feared that he could be executed before the full case could be heard.