Kulbhushan Jadhav, the 49-year-old Indian national sentenced to death by a military court in Pakistan, should be given consular access, the International Court of Justice ordered on Wednesday. ICJ president Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, who read out the verdict for the 16-member bench of the top UN court in The Hague, ordered Pakistan to “effectively review and reconsider” the death sentence because it had breached the international convention on consular access. The world court, however, stopped short of accepting India’s request to cancel the military court’s death sentence handed down in April 2017 after a trial by a Pakistan army court that New Delhi has described as “farcical”. The death sentence aggravated tension between the two countries that India has said would amount to “pre-meditated murder”, if it was carried out. Jadhav emerged many days later in the custody of the Pakistan military who claimed to have arrested him on 3 March 2016 from the restive province of Balochistan in Pakistan and accused him of espionage and terror.

Source: Hindustan Times July 17, 2019 13:26 UTC