Pakistan said former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, awarded death sentence by a Pakistan military court on espionage charges, will not be hanged till he has exhausted the right to seek clemency.
“Irrespective of ICJ’s stay, Jadhav will remain alive until he has exhausted the right to request for clemency, initially with the COAS (army chief) and later with President,” Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said in a statement.
He said the Indian petition at the International Court of Justice was about Jadhav’s entitlement to consular access.
“It is not about whether the ICJ can act as a Court of Appeal from Pakistani legal proceedings. That is why Barrister Khawar Qureshi informed the Court that India cannot obtain from the Court what it is seeking. He also told the Court that India is using media to create false impression about the case.”
The spokesperson said India had failed despite reminders to provide information sought on January 23 by Islamabad on the basis of Jadhav’s confession of spying and fomenting terror in Pakistan.
He termed the ICJ stay on Jadhav’s hanging as “nothing but usual”.
The ICJ has stayed the execution of Jadhav, who has been awarded capital punishment by a Pakistani military court on charges of fomenting terrorism in Balochistan and Karachi.
