The Hague: International Court of Justice will deliver on Wednesday its much-awaited verdict in the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was captured by Pakistani security forces and sentenced to death in 2017 on charges of spying for India. The Court said it would deliver its Judgment at 3 pm.
After hearing the final arguments from both sides, on February 22 the 11-judge bench of the ICJ had reserved the judgment. Jadhav was arrested in March 2016 in Mashakel town, a few km from the Iranian border. He was accused of using the name Hussein Mubarak Patel and was later tried by a military court that sentenced him to death in April 2017 on espionage and terrorism charges.
Pakistan military had said Jadhav had confessed to having been tasked to ''plan, coordinate and organize espionage/sabotage activities aiming to destabilize and wage war against Pakistan by impeding the efforts of law enforcement agencies to restore peace in Balochistan and Karachi.''
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India has rejected Islamabad's charges and said that the retired Indian Naval officer was kidnapped from Iran, where he was doing his own business.
New Delhi has sought annulment of Jadhav's death sentence and his immediate release, saying the verdict failed to satisfy even the minimum standards of due process. It has based its case on two broad issues, a breach of the Vienna Convention on consular access and the process of resolution.
In July 2018, the Court had stayed Jadhav's execution. Jadhav's mother and wife traveled in December 2017 to meet him in Pakistan.
Jadhav mother and wife were forced to change their clothes and not allowed to speak in their mother tongue, and his wife's shoes were never returned.
Last week, Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said that Pakistan would accept the ICJ's verdict.