ISLAMABAD: A former Indian naval officer on death row in Pakistan for alleged spying has refused to lodge an appeal against his conviction, an official said Wednesday, and will try for a military pardon instead.

Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav was arrested in 2016 in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan.

He was sentenced to death by a military tribunal in 2017, but the International Court of Justice ordered Islamabad last year to review the sentence, and he was later offered the right to appeal.

"Commander Jadhav refused to file a petition for the review and the reconsideration for his sentence and conviction," said attorney general official Ahmad Irfan.

"He instead preferred to follow up on his pending mercy petition", Irfan added.

He said Pakistan had written to the Indian high commission inviting it to file an appeal on Jadghav's behalf.

New Delhi maintains Jadhav retired from the navy in 2001 and was running a logistics business in Iran, where he was kidnapped and brought to Pakistan and forced to confess.