Hague: The International Court of Justice resumes the public hearing at the Peace Palace in Hague on Tuesday with respect to the case of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav.
The hearing will be carried out in two phases. In the first phase, Indian observations will be heard while the in the second phase Pakistani observations will be entertained.
The legal teams of India and Pakistan arrived at Hague. The Indian team is led by Harish Salve, the foreign agency reported.
Jadhav was “an innocent Indian national, who, incarcerated in Pakistan for more than a year on concocted charges, deprived of his rights and protection accorded under the Vienna Convention, has been held incommunicado… and faces imminent execution,” Indian lawyer Deepak Mittal told the tribunal on Monday.
Pakistan has failed to respond to Indian demands for information about the case and Jadhav has not been granted consular access, he said.
Islamabad has also not replied to a visa application by Jadhav’s parents seeking to travel to Pakistan to visit their son.
“All that we know is what we have seen in the media in Pakistan,” Mittal told the tribunal at the start of the day-long hearing on Monday.
“India believes that the farcical nature of the proceedings and unjust trial by a Pakistan military court… has led to a serious miscarriage of justice.”
“Jadhav has been denied the right to be defended by a legal counsel of his choice,” he added.
India is seeking an annulment to the death sentence given to Jadhav. Mittal said that Jadhav was “kidnapped from Iran, where he was carrying on business after retiring from the Indian Navy”.
It also wants the ICJ, set up in 1945 to rule on disputes between nations in accordance with international law, to declare that the Pakistani military court violated the Vienna Convention by imposing a death sentence on Jadhav and broke human rights laws.
Pakistan will present its arguments to the court’s afternoon session.
Attorney General Ashtar Ausuf is leading Pakistan’s defence. Additionally, he will point out to the atrocities India is committing in Indian-held Kashmir.
The hearing is being conducted days after India lodged an application with UN judicial body to a suspend the death sentence handed to Jadhav by Pakistani Field General Court Martial.
