- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
A JUDGE in Rome, Italy, on Monday (31) dismissed a murder probe into two marines from the European country who killed two fishermen off the coast of the southern Indian state of Kerala in 2012, months after the case was dropped by the Supreme Court of India.
In a statement, Italian defence minister Lorenzo Guerini welcomed the “positive outcome” involving Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre.
Media sources said the judge’s move came following an assessment by prosecutors last month that there was not enough evidence to carry out a trial.
“”This brings to an end a years-long event during which the defence ministry has never left the two marines and their families on their own,” Guerini said.
Girone and Latorre shot dead the unarmed fishermen off the Indian coast in February 2012 while guarding an Italian oil tanker as part of an anti-piracy mission.
In a legal saga that followed the tragedy, relations between Rome and New Delhi were dogged for almost a decade.
In April last year, India accepted a compensation offer of rupees 100 million.
The country’s apex court quashed the case in June ruling that rupees 40 million would be given to the families of each of the deceased while the remaining money will be given to the owner of the boat which was used by the fishermen.
However, it also said that the Italian government must begin criminal proceedings against the two marines under the jurisdiction immediately and that the Indian side would produce evidence.
Italy argued that the marines were in international waters and had fired after the fishing boat did not heed warnings to stay away.
India called it a “double murder at sea” and arrested and charged Girone and Latorre with homicide. The duo are members of Italy’s elite San Marco Marine regiment.
In 2015, Italy moved the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which ruled last year that the marines were entitled to immunity, AFP reported.
The next year, the same tribunal allowed Girone, who had been holed up in the Italian embassy in New Delhi, to return to his country. Latorre had returned home two years earlier for treatment after suffering a stroke.
