Pakistan ready for next hearing in Jadhav case at ICJ: Qureshi

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Friday (today) told National Assembly that the Attorney General of Pakistan has finalized strategy regarding the next hearing of Kulbhushan Jadhav’s case at International Court of Justice (ICJ), ARY News reported.

In a written statement submitted in National Assembly, the foreign minister informed the house that (ICJ) will conduct the hearing of Kulbhushan Jadhav’s case on February 18, 2019 and the strategy in this regard has been finalized.

About the overall foreign policy, Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that Pakistan wants peaceful ties with all its neighbours including India but sadly, the Indian side has adopted a “hostile” attitude owing to the upcoming general elections in the neighbouring country.

The foreign minister maintained that Prime Minister Imran Khan invited his Indian counterpart for talks and proposed a meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers but India backtracked from the scheduled meeting.

India had moved the ICJ in May 2017 after Jadhav, 48, was sentenced to death by a military court on charges of espionage.

A 10-member bench of the international court on May 18 had restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav till adjudication of the case.

In its written plea, India had accused Pakistan of violation of the Vienna Convention by not giving consular access to his spy, arguing that the convention did not say that such access would not be available to an individual arrested on espionage charges.

In response, Pakistan through its counter-memorial on December 13 told the ICJ that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations 1963 applied only to legitimate visitors and did not cover clandestine operations.

Who is Kulbhushan Jadhav?

Pakistani security agencies on March 24, 2016 apprehended an ‘on-duty RAW agent’ from Balochistan. The suspect was said to be an officer of the Indian navy working for the covert agency to destabilize Pakistan.

The operative had contacts with banned organizations and was working on plans to break Karachi and Balochistan away from Pakistan, and to sabotage the billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.

On March 25, a day after the arrest, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said the Indian man arrested from Balochistan has no connection with the government, however, admitted that Kulbhushan Yadav is a former officer of the Indian navy.

“He (Jadhav) acquired premature retirement from the Indian navy and since then the government has nothing to do with him,” said Vikas Swarup, a spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, requesting Pakistan to grant counsellor access to the ‘arrested Indian citizen’.

On April 10, COAS, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa confirmed his death sentence awarded by Field General Court Martial (FGCM).

The spy was tried under Pakistan Army Act (PAA) and awarded death sentence.

He confessed before a Magistrate and the Court that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organize espionage / sabotage activities aiming to destabilize and wage war against Pakistan by impeding the efforts of Law Enforcement Agencies for restoring peace in Balochistan and Karachi.