Trying Italians for murder

An international tribunal has offered India and Italy a sliver of opportunity to end their differences over two Italian marines charged with killing two Kerala fishermen over four years ago. The two countries have already moved forward by submitting the case for international arbitration. The case will now move to the Indian judiciary, which has been mindful of international sensitivities. It was the misfortune of the marines that they were from Italy. As a result, when the case exploded during the UPA government’s tenure, the Congress joined the political one-upmanship battle with the Opposition. It could not afford to be seen as going “soft” on Italy because the then UPA Chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, is an Indian of Italian origin.

The Kerala unit of the Congress found it politically expedient to take a hard line also because of a must-win Assembly byelection at that time. Otherwise, its Chief Minister Oommen Chandy would not have raised the stakes to an extent that the Centre was compelled to reject Italy’s offer for joint investigations. Since then the case has become so complicated that it took the Modi government over a year to send it for arbitration. The Italians are convinced the two marines from the highly-decorated San Marco Regiment fired the shots in international waters. This means the applicability of the UN rules on the law of the sea, translating into a trial in Italy.

The dissonance led to Italy opposing Indian membership to an elite missile club. In the coming days, China would not have to look for proxies to nix Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of making India a member of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group by the year end. The Indian political establishment’s doublespeak is evident from its silence on the US marines killing Tamil Nadu fishermen off Abu Dhabi. Italy has paid a handsome compensation and the Supreme Court will now evaluate the tribunal’s conditions for the transfer of the remaining marine (one is already in Italy).  It is important for the political class to display level-headedness and allow the judiciary to find a way out of the impasse.