Pakistan ordered to halt execution of Indian ‘spy’

The UN verdict represents a diplomatic setback for Pakistan, which has insisted that Kulbhushan Jadhav’s espionage activities put him beyond the purview of the UN court's jurisdiction.

Friends of Kulbhushan Jadhav react after the former Indian navy officer was given a stay of execution by the UN’s highest court on May 18, 2017. Pakistan had sentence Mr Jadhav to death, accusing him Show more

The United Nations’ highest court on Thursday prevented Pakistan from executing a former Indian naval officer, pending a final decision from the 11-judge bench later this year.

Kulbhushan Jadhav, 47, was arrested in March 2016 in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. In April this year, a Pakistani military court found him guilty of spying and sentenced him to death.

India has maintained that Mr Jadhav had long retired from the navy, and that he was kidnapped from Iran while there on personal business, and smuggled into Pakistan.

On May 8, the Indian government approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the Netherlands, arguing that Pakistan had denied India consular access to Mr Jadhav 16 times and that his trial and sentencing violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

In its interim order on Thursday, the UN court agreed that Pakistan had violated the Vienna Convention.

“Pakistan shall take all measures at its disposal to ensure that Mr Jadhav is not executed pending the final decision in these proceedings,” the court said.

Reacting to the order, India’s foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, said it “has come as a great relief to the family of Kulbhushan Jadhav and the people of India”.

The verdict represents a diplomatic setback for Pakistan, which has insisted that Mr Jadhav’s espionage activities put him beyond the purview of the ICJ’s jurisdiction, and that the court cannot interfere in matters of national security.

Pakistan’s counsel at the court maintained that, according to a 2008 agreement between Islamabad and New Delhi, both countries could grant or deny consular access unilaterally in cases that involved “political or security” threats.

“India desperately tried to divert the world’s attention by presenting Kulbhushan Jadhav’s case from [a] humanitarian angle,” Nafees Zakaria, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign ministry, said on Thursday.

No date has yet been set for Mr Jadhav’s execution, although Pakistan told the ICJ during the trial that it was unlikely to happen before August 2017.

The interim order issued on Thursday is nominally binding, but there have been cases in the past when countries have disregarded such stays of execution.

The United States, on two separate occasions, executed convicts on schedule even after the UN court instructed them to be held back from the gallows, drawing world condemnation.

In 1998, it administered a lethal injection to a Paraguayan national who had been convicted of attempted rape and murder, and the following year, a German national convicted of murder was executed.

For Pakistan to follow suit and execute Mr Jadhav despite the court’s order would “draw international censure”, said ICJ president Ronny Abraham.