President Sergio Mattarella and
Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Monday that Italy was
ready to defend two Italian marines accused of killing two
Indian fishermen during an anti-piracy mission in 2012 at
international arbitration.
The Indian government has said it will tell a hearing at
the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in
Hamburg on August 10 that it is opposed to the case being
decided at arbitration, arguing that it has jurisdiction.
"I confirm the government's commitment to defend the
arguments of marines Massimiliano Latore and Salvatore Girone at
the international bodies we have decided to turn to," Gentiloni
told the XI conference of ambassadors in Rome.
Mattarella vowed Monday that Italy will battle hard to
defend the Italian marines.
"Italy is a country that is ready to protect its citizens
and it intends to keep battling with determination (for the two
marines)," he said at the conference.
The case has caused a long diplomatic dispute between Rome
and New Delhi.
Latorre and Girone are accused of killing fishermen
Valentine (aka Gelastine) and Ajesh Binki after allegedly
mistaking them for pirates and opening fire on their fishing
trawler while guarding the privately owned Italian-flagged
oil-tanker MT Enrica Lexie off the coast of Kerala on February
15, 2012.
India granted Latorre leave to return to Italy last year
after he suffered a stroke.
Rome has protested the many delays in the case, part of the
reason that prompted it to take the case to arbitration.
Formal charges have not yet been presented.
Italy successfully fought to ensure New Delhi took the
death penalty off the table and dropped the application of a
severe anti-terrorism, anti-piracy law, which it said would have
equated Italy with a terrorist state.
Rome argues the case is not in India's jurisdiction as the
incident took place outside the country's territorial waters.
It also says the marines should be exempt from prosecution
in India, because they are servicemen who were working on an
anti-piracy mission.
The EU has said the dispute risks endangering
international anti-piracy efforts.
Mattarella also stressed that Italy was doing its utmost to
free four Italians taken hostage in Libya this month as well as
Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, an Italian Jesuit priest taken captive
in Syria in 2013.
"The Italian commitment remains at the maximum level,"
Mattarella said.
On Sunday, Pope Francis made an appeal for the release of
peace activist Dall'Oglio during his Angelus service.
According to unconfirmed reports earlier this year,
Dall'Oglio was in a prison run by militant Islamist group ISIS
between Raqqa and Aleppo in the north of Syria.
The four Italians captured in Libya last week, Gino
Pollicardo, Fausto Piano, Filippo Calcagno and Salvatore Failla,
are workers for oil construction firm Bonatti.
Secret service undersecretary Marco Minniti told the
intelligence oversight committee Copasir last week that the
abductions were probably the work of a gang with no links to
terror who are just out for ransom money.
Mattarella said that Italy was a leading force in the
battle to stop ISIS.
"Italy is at the side of the countries that, on the other
side of the Mediterranean, are on the front line in the fight
against the obscurantism and barbarity," he said.
"Fundamentalist terrorism is a serious phenomenon that
should be addressed in the right way, with firmness and
determination, while rejecting Islamophobic impulses".
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