India has filed petition in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for stay death sentence of RAW spy of Kulbhushan Jadhav.
Jadhav alias Hussein Mubarak Patel, a serving Indian Navy officer and RAW operative, was arrested on March 3, 2016, through a counterintelligence operation from Mashkel area of Balochistan for his involvement in espionage and sabotage activities in Pakistan.
According to a press release issued from ICJ, India has urged the United Nations’ judicial organ to provide relief “by way of immediate suspension of the sentence of death awarded to the accused”.
The petition urged ICJ to “restrain Pakistan from giving effect to the sentence and direct it to take steps to annul the decision.”
“If Pakistan is unable to annul the decision, then this Court should declare the decision illegal… [and] direct it to release the convicted Indian national forthwith,” the petition added.
The petition plead 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.
The petition also accused Pakistani authorities of violating the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by denying India consular access to Jadhav.
India has contended that it was not granted consular access to Jadhav, which was in violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. India has also claimed that it learned about the death sentence by way of a press release.
He also confessed to his involvement in subversive activities in Pakistan in a video statement last year.
On April 10, Jadhav was awarded a death sentence by a Field General Court Martial (FGCM) under the Pakistan Army Act (PAA) for espionage and sabotage.
Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa ratified Jadhav’s sentence.
