Italy requests Supreme Court to enforce UN court verdict, allow marine to return

Italy has requested India's Supreme Court to urgently enforce a UN arbitration tribunal's decision enabling Italian marine Salvatore Girone to quickly return from India, where he is being held on murder charges.

"Italy submitted a request to the summer recess Supreme Court of India to urgently enforce the decision of The Hague Court of Arbitration...enabling Italian marine Salvatore Girone to quickly return to Italy," the Italian Foreign Ministry said in a statement here today.

The matter came up in the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear Italy's plea on May 26. According to the Court of Arbitration decision, Italy and India are called on to cooperate in defining the conditions and the ways with which to regulate Salvatore Girone's return and permanence in Italy while awaiting the decision of the arbitration proceeding on the dispute over the jurisdiction on the Enrica Lexie case.

Girone is one of two Italian marines -- on board ship 'Enrica Lexie' -- accused by India of killing two of its fishermen off the Kerala coast in 2012. He has not been able to leave India, aside from a few brief permits, since the incident. The other marine, Massimiliano Latorre, is back in Italy after a stroke in 2014.

The Tribunal is adjudicating only on the limited question of whether India or Italy has the jurisdiction to try the two Marines for the killing of two innocent Indian fishermen. The two countries have agreed to arbitration by the UN court.