New Delhi (AsiaNews) – India and Italy have ended their dispute over the killing in February 2012 of two Kerala fishermen by two Italian marines.
India’s Supreme Court yesterday said that the criminal case against the two Italian soldiers will be dropped once the Italian government deposits 100 million rupees (US$ 1.34 million) in an Indian Foreign Ministry account as compensation to the victims’ families. This comes on top of 21.7 million rupees (US$ 290,000) already paid out.
At the time of the incident, the two marines, Warrant Officer Massimiliano Latorre and Chief Petty Officer Salvatore Girone, were acting as armed guards on board the tanker Enrica Lexie.
Thinking that they were in international waters, the two soldiers said that they fired at a pirate ship, which turned out to be an Indian fishing boat. Two crew members, Jelestein and Ajesh Binki, died from the gunfire.
In July 2020, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that it was up to Italy to try Latorre and Girone, who enjoyed “functional immunity”. At the same time, it decided that the Italian government had to pay compensation to the families of the fishermen killed.
The latter have accepted the payment, each getting 40 million rupees while the other 20 million will go to the fishing boat’s owner who was wounded in the incident.
