This is an IDF Analysis about Naval Cdr Kulbhuhsan Jadhav, in the custody of Pakistan on death row, based on awareness how Intelligence operates, and a Legal Primer Utube by brilliant Senior Advocate Harish Salve, explaining Jadhav’s live case by joining dots from the media. Prasun Sengupta who followed www.indiadefenceforum.com posts on Cdr Jadhav has collated.
Jadhav stands accused by Pakistan as a RAW spy working in Baluchistan while he owned Kanmida Trading in the Chabahar Free Trade Zone where India has a berth, and plied a 3,500-tonne dhow between Kandla and Bandar Abbas. Jadhav’s passport bore an Iranian residency permit for the Chabahar free trade zone. He was likely kidnapped by Pakistan along the border (or at sea, as his boat not found), a version that the MEA’s statement of March 29th endorses.
In April 2016 a can of worms opened between India and Pakistan when Media and Parliament were shocked by the death sentence awarded to an innocent Ex Cdr Jadhav as Government stated, after a General Court Martial (FGCM). Pakistan Army apprehended him and had told media before Indian High Commission in Islamabad. This contradicts Vienna convention, that IDF learnt in Singapore which is not a Signatory to the Convention but agrees to abide by its conventions on a case by case basis. It is like India does not wish to sign the Nuclear Proliferation Teaty(NPT) but agrees to follow its clauses.
MEA decided to go to the ICJ with Salve who explains the limitation that being Commonwealth Nations India and Pakistan by Charter cannot go to ICJ and needs a treaty between nations. Even China and USA do not have a treaty. Salve went to ICJ on Vienna Convention grounds to secure Consular Access as Pakistan argued Spies are not entitled to Consular Access, which Salve blunted in hearing, using papers the opposing London based Pakistani lawyer tabled.
Media has reported Harish Salve wants to re-open the case in ICJ again. He has represented India twice earlier Pro Bono with possibly only air and hotel expenses. Top Indian lawyers charge the earth! But this case as Sherlock Holmes would concede is prestigious as weeks before Jadhav was apprehended, Indian media reported a Sushmit Biswas IPS (1995 Batch) at the Indian Embassy in Tehran, was repatriated, and media speculated. Iran’s Intelligence Vezarat-e ettela’at (VAJA) is rated.
Salve argued a Military Court Martial was illegal for a civilian though Pakistan has it in its Sovereign legal code. Singapore has laws of death penalty in its Sovereign Code. Jadhav of the 1991 NDA technical batch worked in NHQ possibly in DNI. In around 2014 he would have even earned pension and Government stated he was retired but Pakistan claims he was in service. A Genform and his IT returns would clear this, but ICJ is not a Trial Court. A passport, Pakistan claims from Jadhav with Iran’s permission to work in Chahbahar Special Free Trade Zone has his address and photo but a Muslim name and another Number, but Salve brilliantly opposed all this as immaterial to the case for a consular access matter, which was his brief.
The Indian media and the way Salve assured Indians on TV they thought he will get Cdr Jadhav released. ICJ is not a Trial Court and cannot decide if Jadhav is a spy or not. Salve got Jadhav’s hanging postponed indefinitely which suited Pakistan, and allowed his mother with DHC in Islamabad to meet Jadhav and Televised it. Pakistan called it Consular Access. Now Salve wants to go to ICJ again, with a humanitarian plea to Pakistan and the world. Yet USA is not sanctioning Pakistan makes mockery of QUAD as China supports Pakistan.
In the Cold war USA exchanged Gary Powers with a Soviet spy at the Warden Gate Bridge in East Germany….See movie Bridge of Spies. Gary Ex US Air Force flew CIA’s U-2 espionage missions in 1956 at 70,000 feet (21 km) above Soviet air defenses to photograph military installations. USAF operated U-2 flights from Charbatia in the 1960s, now an ARC base. Welcome to the art of Intelligence of scratch my back, I scratch yours.
In April, 2017 Pakistan media went to town, ” Lets swap Jadhav with a Col Md Zahir Habib who went missing in Lumbini”.
On 23rd Dec, in IE Newsweek’s Khaleed Ahmed, “Some say it is going to be a case of exchange of spies. India caught Md Habib Zahir, the retired Colonel of the Pakistan Army who disappeared from Lumbini near Nepal’s border with India and is suspected to be Indian custody”.
On 29th Dec Ehaz Haidar in IE, “According To Pakistan Foreign Minister Khajwa Md Asif there Was Also A Proposal Of Swap and wrote about exchange of the person through Afghanistan for the one who carried out the APS (Army Public School) attack in Peshawar”.
CAN CHINA BE SUED FOR SPREADING COVID-19 IN ICJ OR IIC —NOT LIKELY UNLESS
IDF now links above to explain how Claims on China being reported in media to sue China for spreading COVID may not see the light of day unless UN NSC is reformed or agrees to send case to ICJ or International Criminal Court(ICC). Only UNSC can act but has not met and USA, UK and France fear China and Russia will veto any action against China. UNSC needs reform. NSA Shankar Menon feels voices against China may mellow after six months.
Officially only Trump wants to take China to task but does not have any plan except to stop trade. ICJ or ICC at this stage looks unavailable. In July 1998, the Rome Statute established the ICC – the only permanent international judicial mechanism to Investigate and prosecute genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression. But to take a Government to ICC the UNSC has to give permission.
In any case to admit the case, only Nations can go to ICJ and even if China agrees(impossible) by a special agreement the ICJ will need proof of culpability. See www.indiadefenceforum.com analysis of 12th April explains how all proof may have been lost, and even Remdevisr is mentioned. Ziang Zemin’s grandson makes it at FOSM Pharma. China plans long term and is autocratic, a democratic nation finds difficult to understand is IDF appreciation.
Chinese Ambassador to UK Liu Xiaoming in superb English on Hard Talk with Stephen Secur last week admitted that like SARs Covid is from a Bat and possibly from the animal market in Wuhan………..and not at all synthetic or on purpose. Stephen was trapped to accept it. Note Chinese made good Interpreters join Foreign Service long ago and are now high up in Missions and know the country well, speak fluently even in India. Chinese used strategy even for a Hard Talk. Shan Na Varuna.
Harish Salve On the Kulbhushan Jadhav Case:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzQ2t9oMpXo