As the world proceeds towards a future that seems uncertain yet promising, several countries unwittingly choose to turn inwards, ignoring international relations in the bid. The approach is not only selfish, and inconsiderate, but keeping globalisation's pace today, it is common sense that a country's inclination can set a precedent to the place it occupies in the current world order.
In the last few days, two disturbing events have brought to light the scale at which foreign countries fail to deliver justice. The closest to home is the death sentence awarded to former Indian Navy man Kulbhushan Jadhav, by a military court in Pakistan. In what is seen as a definite strain in bilateral ties, India has declared the sentence as “premeditated murder”. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has asserted that India will go “out of way” to ensure justice to Jhadav, warning Pak of severe consequences. “I would caution Pakistan government to consider the consequences for our bilateral relationship if they proceed on this matter. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Jadhav. If anything, he is the victim of a plan that seeks to cast aspersions on India to deflect international attention from Pakistan's well-known record of sponsoring and supporting terrorism,” she said.
Jadhav was arrested on March 3, 2017, in what Islamabad calls a counter-intelligence operation in Balochistan's Mashkel. Following the arrest, Islamabad released a video showing Jadhav purportedly admitting his involvement in spying. Pak claimed that he was holding an alias as Hussein Mubarak Patel, and despite India's 13 notes verbale for consular access to Jadhav, only sent a letter of assistance in response seeking help from Indian authorities to probe “charges” against him.
It is strongly suspected that the retired personnel was “snatched” by Pakistani agencies last year, from Iran, and his subsequent presence in the country was never credibly explained. India's claims were boosted by the government of Iran which released a statement saying Jadhav who was in their country, was not engaged in any illegal activity. “Senior Pakistani figures have themselves cast doubt about the adequacy of evidence. The claim in the ISPR release that Jadhav was provided with a defending officer during the so-called trial is clearly absurd in the circumstances,” the government said.
Meanwhile, Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar summoned Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit to make India's outrage evident. “If this sentence against an Indian citizen, awarded without observed basic norms of law and justice, is carried out, the government and people of India will regard it as a case of premeditated murder,” he told Basit.
While Jadhav's case unfolds, a “wrongly jailed” British man of Indian-origin won a fresh chance of freedom on April 8. After spending 30 years in prison for a double murder, Krishna Maharaj, might finally be freed as federal appeals judges in the United States conceded there was “compelling” new evidence that he did not commit the crime. The 11th circuit court in Atlanta, Georgia, accepted that the murders of Derrick and Duane Moo Young in a Miami hotel room in 1986, may be the doing of Colombia's Medellin drugs cartel, run by the infamous Pablo Escobar.
In major breakthrough, new testimony by a couple of cartel members raises the prospect that Maharaj “could not have been guilty of the Moo Young murders beyond a reasonable doubt, because if a hit man for the cartel committed the murders, Maharaj did not, the judges wrote. Director of Human Rights Group Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith who has represented Maharaj pro bono, said, “Its' a good day. If I'm being optimistic, this is a 'home by Christmas' event- but then, they said that about World War I. When I received the legal opinion, I had the totally conflicting feelings of utter elation for Kris and his wife Marita, and then an overwhelming sense of exhaustion at the work that now lies ahead. There are a lot of legal hurdles to jump, but this finally puts light at the end of the tunnel.”
The best part of the update is that federal prosecutors could now be forced to hand over previously suppressed evidence that would help Kris' claims of innocence. The murders of the Moo Youngs were portrayed as a grudge-killing by Maharaj. Authorities may not also have to give up secret papers on Jaime Vallejo Meija, an agent for Escobar's cartel, who on the day of the fatal shootings in room 1215 of the Dupont Plaza Hotel, was staying in the room just across the hallway.
Smith said, “When a state judge ordered the feds to provide these documents, they ignored him. They'll have a hard time ignoring a federal judge.”
A former millionaire race horse owner from Peckham, south London, Maharaj was originally sentenced to the electric chair. After 15 years on the death row in Florida, he was re-sentenced and sentenced for life. At the age of 30, Maharaj suffers from serious illnesses, including infection with a flesh-eating bug.
