"Italy and India must suspend all existing judicial initiatives and not undertake new ones that could aggravate the dispute". This is the verdict of the Hamburg Sea Court, called to express itself on the case of the two Italian marines Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre, held responsible by the Indian justice for the killing of two fishermen off the coast of the Indian state of Kerala in February 2012. International arbitration had been activated at the request of Italy after the collapse of the negotiations with India.
The Special Tribunal therefore delegated the final decision to the international arbitration in The Hague, which is responsible for "judging the merits of the case". Hamburg he did not consider "appropriate to prescribe interim measures since this would have touched issues related precisely to the merits of the case". In the meantime though Italian requests were also rejected as regards temporary measures: Italy had requested, pending the conclusion of the judicial process, the return home of Salvatore Girone, now in India, and the stay in Italy of Massimiliano Latorre, currently recovering at home after suffering illness in India. Rome had also requested that India cease exercising any kind of jurisdiction over the case.
“Italy hoped otherwise. We had asked for other things, the sentence does not go in the direction we had requested", said Infrastructure Minister Graziano Delrio at the CL meeting in Rimini, commenting on the verdict on the marines. "The government can do nothing but take note of it, then further steps will be decided by the Prime Minister and the competent ministers".
