The Kulbhushan Jadhav case was "complicated" by the previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government, Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said. Qureshi also claimed that India was trying to take Pakistan again to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for not implementing its verdict.
"Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (government) complicated the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav," Qureshi said on Sunday, according to news agency ANI, without explaining his comment.
Kulbhushan Jadhav, the 51-year-old retired Indian Navy officer, was arrested in March 2016 in Balochistan. Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017. India has rejected the charges levelled against Jadhav and said he was kidnapped by Pakistani operatives from the Iranian port of Chabahar, where he was running a business. The ICJ stayed Jadhav’s execution in 2018.
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India approached the Hague-based ICJ against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging his death sentence. The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must undertake an "effective review and reconsideration" of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay.
{{/usCountry}}India approached the Hague-based ICJ against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging his death sentence. The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must undertake an "effective review and reconsideration" of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay.
{{/usCountry}}On Thursday, Pakistan’s Parliament rushed through a bill that will help Kulbhushan Jadhav appeal against the death sentence given to him by a military court amid protests by the opposition, which accused the government of violating parliamentary principles. The bill is also aimed at allowing Jadhav to have consular access in line with the ICJ verdict.
Qureshi said that opposition MPs who were against the bill to provide relief to Jadhav were “speaking the language of India”. “India wants Pakistan not to abide by the decision of the ICJ and the opposition also wants this,” he said.
Law minister Farogh Naseem added the ICJ had asked Pakistan to enact legislation to provide the right of appeal to Jadhav. If the bill wasn’t passed, India could initiate contempt proceedings against Pakistan in the ICJ, Naseem said.