Italy expects a fair trial for marines: Mistura

steffanmistura-pti.jpg.crop_display.jpg

Italy's Deputy Foreign Minister Steffan de Mistura, now in Kerala in connection with the case of shooting of two fishermen, on Sunday said his country expects the trial of the accused Italian marines to be fair as the judiciary was independent in India.

"What I could learn from here is that judiciary is independent, fair and transparent in India. So, we expect the trial in the case to be fair with judges hearing both sides," Mistura told reporters here.

On the intervention of Italian government in the case, he said, "We are only doing what Indians would have done in a similar situation."

Mistura said the sympathy of Italy was with the bereaved family of the two fishermen who died on February 15.

He said the purpose of his visit to the town (Kollam) was to convey condolences to the family of Jelastine, one of the two fishermen killed. He said it was unfortunate that he could not meet the family members of Jelastine.

Meanwhile, Jelastine's family turned down the move of the Italian delegation to meet them at a local church during the Sunday mass.

Sources close to the family said they feared that meeting the Italians without the knowledge of the government or investigators would harm their case leading to denial of justice.

Mistura and his team arrived here last evening and met two Italian marines charged with murder in the shooting case and detained in police custody.

Though the Italian team tried to have a meeting with wife and two sons of Jelastine with the help of a Catholic priest, it did not succeed. Police objected to the move on security grounds while the family members also did not show any interest in meeting the team.

The fishermen, Jelastine and Ajesh Binki, were allegedly shot dead by the two Italian marine guards off the Kollam coast on February 15 suspecting them to be pirates.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/131411" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-cb63283fe514b334638af096fedbb58c" value="form-cb63283fe514b334638af096fedbb58c" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86330652" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.