The apex court said that the marines, Massimiliano Lattore and Salvatore Girone on board 'Enrica Lexie', accused of shooting dead two Indian fishermen off the coast of Kerala in February last year, will be shifted to Delhi and be under the 'custody' of the Supreme Court till the Centre constitutes a special court to hold their trial.
The bench said that Italian Embassy will arrange for their stay and it will monitor their movements. It said that all the conditions imposed on them by the Kerala court, while granting them bail will remain till the special court is set up and the marines will mark their presence atleast once a week before the Chankyapuri police station.
A bench of Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice J Chelameswar said that if the accused fired at the fishermen on the misunderstanding that they were pirates then the they will not be tried for murder charges and only Article 100 of UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) would be applicable which is to be decided by the court after going through all the evidence.
"Whether the accused acted on the misunderstanding that the Indian fishing vessel was a pirate vessel which caused the accused to fire, is a matter of evidence which can only be established during a trial. If the defence advanced on behalf of the accused is accepted, then only will the provisions of Article 100 of the Convention become applicable to the facts of the case," the bench said.
The bench rejected the plea of the Italian government and the two accused marines that Indian courts have no jurisdiction in the case and they should be tried in an Italian court.
"The incident of firing from the Italian vessel on the Indian shipping vessel having occurred within the Contiguous Zone, the Union of India is entitled to prosecute the two Italian marines under the criminal justice system prevalent in the country," the bench said. (MORE)