The International Court of Justice will be announcing the verdict on Kulbhushan Jadhav case on 17 July 2019, as confirmed by the foreign office.
The 49 years serving commander of Indian Navy, Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav (aka Hussain Mubarak Patel) was arrested from Baluchistan on 3 March 2016 over the charges of plotting terrorism in Pakistan and spying for an Indian intelligence agency. While his trial in a military court, he confessed his involvement in the alleged matters and was sentenced to death by the court in 2017.
India authorities claimed that Jadhav was a former naval officer as he took early retirement. They further denied any links with him and added that he was abducted from Iran.
The order for execution was held by the International Court of Justice on Indian appeal. They claimed in the court that Jadhav is an innocent businessman who was abducted and was tortured to admit the false claims. Jadhav was also denied consular access on which India pleaded to release him to return to India.
ICJ is currently headed by a Muslim Judge Justice Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf. The 16 member bench includes former Chief Justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Hussain Jilani as an ad hoc judge and Justice Dalveer Bhandari as a permanent judge from India. The court will decide to grant consular access to the accused or not. However, it is believed that Indian request to release Jadhav would be rejected.
Indian authorities had demanded consular access for Jadhav under Article 36 of Vienna Convention, but could not defend arguments on its own drafted agreement with Pakistan on 21 May 2008, which clearly states that consular access is subject to merits of the case, and a person involving in a case of national security would be excluded under the agreement. The confessional video statement of Jadhav apparently does not show any sign of torture on him which also leads to India’s false accusations.
