India's top judge said Monday that Italy's ambassador had forfeited his diplomatic immunity over his role in securing the release of two marines who skipped bail while on trial for murder in New Delhi. Chief Justice Altamas Kabir said Daniele Mancini, who had negotiated the Italians' release last month so they could vote in an election, had waived his immunity by giving an undertaking to a court that the pair would return.
"A person who comes to court and gives an undertaking has no immunity," Kabir told a hearing, while ordering that the ambassador stay in India until the next hearing on April 2. Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, who are accused of murdering two Indian fishermen last year, had been given permission to fly to Italy to cast their votes in the election on the understanding that they would return.
But the Italian government announced last week that it would renege on its commitment to send the men back, prompting fury in New Delhi. The Indian government has warned of "consequences" and is reviewing its ties with Italy, while the case is being watched carefully by India's allies because it could set precedents over the treatment of foreign diplomats.
New Delhi has put its airports on alert to prevent Mancini from leaving the country and the Supreme Court issued instructions that "appropriate steps" should be taken to restrain him. Without legal protection he could be prosecuted for contempt of court. A lawyer for the Italian government argued that Mancini still enjoyed diplomatic immunity and freedom of movement under international rules contained in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
However Kabir, who was heading a three-judge bench, said: "We have lost all trust in the ambassador." Katherine Reece-Thomas, an international law expert at City University London, said that India risked being in breach of its Vienna Convention commitments. "The only sanction available to the host state (India) is to declare the diplomat to be persona non grata and demand that he leave," Reece-Thomas wrote in an email sent to AFP.
"India cannot stop the ambassador leaving against his will and any suggestion that he somehow waived his rights under the Convention is unfounded." In Brussels, the EU's foreign service Monday reacted cautiously to Kabir's decision. India and Italy should "pursue all avenues for an amicable solution," said the spokesman for European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton.
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