The case Marò (Italian Navy marines)
What is wrong with this case of Indian justice, which seems so twisted and removed from the truth, we could say this because if the Indian authorities were looking at the facts earnestly this case should not even be in their courts. So let us look at what we know here, which is not much but it is enough to see that something is very wrong with this case.
This is a concerned citizen view that is following this international event of the two Marò (Italian Navy marines) who were doing their job and defending their assigned vessel “Enrica Lexie, while it was navigating at Kochi, Karala state, India” you see, they had to guard this vessel and during their duty they were forced by circumstances that they had to fire on this unidentified Indian boat, which might have caused two Indian fishermen deaths. Now the death of these two persons has not been proven that it was the two marines that caused their deaths or was somebody else; but the most important point here remains that the two Italian Navy marines were doing their duty, as they were guarding this oil tanker from pirates, while this tragic event happened, therefore they definitely could not be pirates, since they were Italian Navy marines and this is the main mistake that the Indian authorities are making, were they insist that they want to prosecute these two Italian Navy marines as if they are pirates, which can never be because they were doing their duty as marines when this tragic event happened. Perhaps the pirates were the two dead Indians that very likely pretended to be fishing, but at the same time they seemed to challenge the Erica Lexie, since they were going towards her and getting closer and closer and not responding to any signal that the Enrika Lexie was sending, having seen all this the two Italian Navy marines opened fire to defend their vessel, therefore whatever happened was in self defence and it should not be intended in any other way.
Therefore, here we need to ask the right questions: Are the Indian Costal Guards and their courts doing the right thing or is it all a farce to make believe their Indian citizen that they are doing their Job, while they are covering themselves up with what they do not do in their own hometown, from over here they seem so slack, for instance their police force don’t seem to do much when a crime is reported, which is so horrible from some news that we happen to hear: Here I am going to limit myself to say the bare minimum because to write what we have heard would offend the readers.
Now let us go back to the main cause that has made me write this article, you see, in this case of the Italian Navy marine the Indian authorities want to show the world that they want justice, because there was a mistake made from the Enrica Lexie for a start and this caused the incident. At the time of the incident there are conflicting reports whether the Oil Tanker was on international waters or in the Contiguous Zone, which is a zone between the territorial waters and the international waters, this Contiguous Zone the Indian authorities may have the option of calling them Indian waters and so they did; but was the Enrica Lexie aware of this at the time when this happened we do not know, or was the tanker near the boundary of these water is hard to say, because this seems to be the reason why all this is happening; the Erica Lexie people thinks that they are in international water a few miles from the Contiguous Zone, but the Indian insist that they are in their territorial waters.
Then there are lots of other things that may have caused this entire incident, so we believe that if the Indian want justice that would be better worked out if an international court of laws took the case, because they would be able to look at the facts independently, instead of the Indian court of laws that have already condemned the two Italian marines even though they are innocent.
You see the Indian authorities want to turn the Italian Navy marines into pirates while they are on duty doing their job as marines guarding their oil tanker that was being attacked from this unidentified boat, which seemed to the marines a pirate boat; this is the main issue here that needs to be understood first of all, so let us see what is the difference and define what are pirates.
Definition of pirates
As we have already said at the beginning the Indian authorities need to look at the facts, before they even accuse the Italian Navy marines, but for the Indian authorities to do that they need to find a way, so they turn the marines into pirates and this is completely incorrect, the Indian do this because that is the only way for them to prosecute the marines, who during their duty unfortunately had to fire on this unidentified boat to defend themselves.
Now let us just for a moment defines who the pirates are: the pirates are people that intentionally use to navigate around the sea with the intention of robbing other boats by force, which is not the case with our Italian Navy marines as they were only doing their duty of defending their Oil Tanker MT “Enrica Lexie; whether they made a mistake by opening fire on the Indian unidentified boat that later on turned out to be the trawler St-Antony is not known yet, as the St-Antony seemed to go straight to the Enrica Lexie oil tanker for their own reasons, therefore the two Marò (Italian Navy marines) were under the impression that they were being attacked and this was the only reason why they started shooting, they were not going to rob the St-Antony at all therefore they are not pirates, I hope we have made it clear enough why this incident happened, at least this is how we see it from here, with what is available to read.
There is also another story about this incident, which is that it was somebody else that shot the Indian fishermen and it could have been from any other boat close enough to the St-Antony including the oil tanker Enrica Lexie. Anyhow what we would like to point out here is that the two Italian marines are not pirates and neither are they terrorists. So, our views are that they should not be prosecuted as pirates or terrorists; after all they are Italian soldiers working on this oil tanker that has nothing to do with these activities of pirates or terrorists, with the exception of fighting against them.
Here we have to admit that two Indians are dead and that the people that uphold the Indian laws have to work out what has happened, but in doing so they should not jump to conclusion and label somebody as pirates, because that cannot be true, because they are soldiers doing their duty and guarding the Enrica Lexie from pirates.
What is wrong with this case?
So, what seems to be wrong here is that two nations that should have known better how to handle this situation are failing to do their duty properly and if the people in charge have done anything they have done it the wrong way: the Indian insist to have their ways, because in their views the incident is supposed to have happened in the Contiguous Zone, so they want to extend this zone as their territorial waters and prosecute the two marines as pirates or terrorist, which is completely absurd, since the two Italian marines were on guard duty, when the incident happened; the Italians have not been able to do any better than the Indians, because they have not been able to convince the Indians that the two Marò were only doing their job, as they were guarding the Enrica Lexie from any dangers, therefore if anybody was to blame, it should have been the authorities above them for not setting everything right from the start.
In cases like this it would be a lot better, if the Indian authorities would show mercy in this very difficult case and tell the Enrica Lexie commander and the Italian that they will prosecute the two guards on a lesser charge, or set the two soldiers free and tell the Italian government that they owe them one favour next time around. You see the way that this case is shaping up is going to be very difficult for everybody involved.
What we are trying to convey here is this: if the Indian courts prosecute the marines as pirates or terrorists the entire world will think of them as heartless people unable to see the truth, and their laws are unjust and therefore they will lose a lot of trust worldwide. You see today most societies are trying to eliminate the dead penalty, but the Indians seem that they want to go back to the dark ages, if and when they prosecute the Italian marines, which most of us still believe to be innocent. This will create resentment and hate from everybody. There is also the fact that if a marine or a soldier and even a policeman can be prosecuted in such hard manner, because during their duty an incident like the Italian marines happens to them, then no one would want to serve in these public forces anymore; if that happens, then the entire world would lack the personal to enforce the laws and anarchy will reign supreme.
We hope that we have explained it clear enough for the public to understand the situation.
But let us just try to understand what has really happened, by using our own imagination and by using what we have learned from the news from both sides, because there are many issues that do not seem to add up, so, let us just imagine the whole situation ourselves, why all these events have happened and what could have really happened; we are going to do this with an open mind and look at all possibilities.
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Let us just imagine
Now if you don’t mind let us look at what we know has happened from the news available till now, and then let us just imagine how that incident happened and also speculate why it happened, because it seems that there are several things that do not add up properly; you see, when things do not add up it very likely is not true, or they could only be partly true.
We all know that for every action there is a reaction, therefore to come close to the truth actions and reactions should follow each other in a logic and meaningful way; this is what we are going to find out, by trying to imagine how that tragic event the 15th of February 2012 happened and also some of the reasons why it happened, in order to do that we are going to put forward some theories of what really could have happened; all this would be based on those things that we know already about this case, starting with the following possible story:
First of all we would like to know more about the two supposed to be fishermen that have died, because what has happened there leaves a lot of doubt whether they were only fishermen, or they were something else and they had a vested interest in chasing the oil tanker, for their own personal reasons or other unknown reasons. You see it is important to note that even though the marines tried to shoot at the StAntony there is no real evidence that they hit the boat and killed the fishermen. At this point of time you may ask why we believe that the marines did not kill the supposed to be fishermen.
Okay, this is what seems to be wrong first of all; it is said that after the incident the Enrica Lexie was ordered from the Indian Coast Guards to dock at Kochi port and they did.
Here is the first question, why the Coast Guard were very quickly on the scene, we do not know but sure it seems suspicious, as if they were waiting for something to happen around the oil tanker, this makes me think that somehow there was a conspiracy, and the StAntony might not be just a fishing boat, since the way they behaved when the oil tanker were signalling them to stop to go towards them, they continued in the same direction as if they wanted to assault the oil tanker; here you have to note that it was their action of not taking any notice that came from the oil tanker that caused the marines to fire towards the StAntony. Now this does not mean that it was the marines that killed the two supposed to be fishermen, because it could easily be somebody else involved. You see the way everybody behaves in this incident seems very suspicious, and just everybody could be involved in something that they don’t want to say openly, because they might become involved themselves.
We will be continuing to write more about this case, because we would like to say what we think, but to say what we think may not be the right thing to do, because it is going to be completely outrageous, because what we believe could have happened might involve the Indian Guards themselves and that is not an easy thing to say or prove, anyhow hereunder we are going to say one of the possible theories, but pay attention to that it is only a possible theory and we are not really accusing the Indian authorities of anything at all.
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The outrageous theory
When we let our imagination go free it can take us anywhere at all, in fact it can take us to places that could be even dangerous, but anyhow just because in this hub of Indian Justice there are so many things that do not add up, we may as well add another one, not because we just like to add more controversies, but to try to find the real reason why these controversies exist and therefore try to see what could be true and what is not true, so, let us see what our imagination suggests, after reading several things about this case about the Indian authorities and the two Italian marines that were involved in this incident.
Apart that there are several version of things that don’t add up, the most strange of all is that the Indian authorities insist that this incident has happened in the Contiguous Zone in the Kerala sea and they estimate that the Enrica Lexie was 20.5 to 22 nautical miles from their coast, which would be still in the Contiguous Zone and they can claim this as their territorial waters; whereas the Enrica Lexie say that when this incident happened they were about 30 nautical miles from the coast and this would be international waters, which of this two versions is the correct one we will never know, perhaps it was near the boundary of the Indian waters. This distance from the coast is critical, because it would decides if the incident would fall under the Indian laws, or the Italian or the international laws.
Now let us see who were on the Erica Lexie while this tanker was in transit from Galle (Sri Lanka) to Gibuti (in Africa) with its cargo. There were 34 crews on the Enrica Lexie, there were 19 Indians working on this tanker, 6 Italian marines as security guards and the rest were the officers of the oil tanker. Now just think about this, the 6 Italian Marines were there to guard the Enrica Lexie from pirates, as they were going to go through these water that are estimated to have a very high risk of piracy, so they were doing their job that had to be done when the incident happened.
And now, let us see who were on the StAntony, the only thing that we know here is that the crew of the StAntony had 11 people who were fishermen or were supposed to be fishermen, we are saying this because the way that they behaved towards the Erica Lexie was aggressive, they also had long distance fire arms on board, which would suggest that they were not there just to catch fish, but had other things to do beside fishing tuna.
So what might have been the reason for the StAntony to ignore the warning signs that the Enrica –Lexie were sending, did they have something else to do, did they really think that the Enrica Lexie was not guarded and they could really grab it and hold it to ransom? We are saying this because the Indian authorities were very upset that they had not been told that there were armed guards on the Enrica Lexie; if this would be the case, then the aggressor is the StAntony and the two marines that fired were only doing what they were supposed to do, defend their oil tanker from any pirate attack. Now let us make this very clear, the marines might have opened fire towards the StAntony, but this does not mean that they hit the trawler or killed two men of the crew of the StAnnony, because there is some evidence that they were killed from somebody else, but we will come to this later on.
There might even be something else that caused this incident, just remember that the StAntony has an Indian crew and in the Enrica Lexie crew there are 19 Indians, so it could be that these two Indian crews wanted to exchange something and the StAntony was going towards the Enrica Lexie to collect whatever their countrymen were going to throw into the sea for them to collect, well this is just another possibility. This outrageous theory does not finish here because there is a lot more to be said hereunder.
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What could have happened?
In our imaginary theory, the Saint Antony was navigating towards the Enrica Lexie, because they wanted to collect something from their countrymen. The Italian marines that were guarding the oil tanker did not know this, so they believed they were being attacked from pirates, because they were on guard they fired warning shots towards the Saint Antony, while somebody was signalling to the Saint Antony to stop coming towards them, but they kept coming as if nothing was happening, so the marine were forced to open fire again, it was their job to defend their oil tanker, this time the Saint Antony stopped attacking them.
Now because the Italian marines shot towards the Saint Antony, it does not mean that they killed the two supposed to be fishermen, in fact we are not sure that they even hit the boat, because some expert have found out that the shots that hit the boat and killed the fishermen could not have been shot from the high deck of the Enrica Lexie, where the two Italian marines were on duty, but they must have been shot from somebody else that were at the same level as the Saint Antony; therefore this unfortunate event start looking more like an execution from somebody that nobody wants to mention for fear of ending the same way as the two supposed to be fishermen.
So however it could have been must be so powerful, because what follows next is not easy to follow and it does not make sense, unless there is somebody that bends the law and makes the Indian Coast Guards do what he wants, in other words there must be a sort of Indian mafia behind all this happening, because that is the only way that all these events would make sense, we believe that this would not have happened, if there was no vested interest from some powerful people. We are going to describe what the Indian Coast Guard did next, so that they could induce the Enrica Lexie to go into their port at Kochi. You see what they did was a pack of lies to the Enrica Lexie commander; they did all this so that they could turn their countrymen that could really be assaulting the Enrica Lexie and therefore they were the sea pirates into heroes, and then turn the defending Italian marines who were defending their oil tanker into pirates, we will be talking about this event here, in our next hub Indian tricks.
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The Enrica Lexie Incident occurred on 15 February 2012 when
Italian Navy marines on-board a privately owned Italian-flagged Aframax oil-tanker MT Enrica Lexie opened fire on a fishing trawler. Indian
coastal police were alerted that two crew members of St-Antony, an Indian fishing
trawler engaged in commercial fishing related activities had been killed by
gunfire from an oil-tanker. The shooting incident occurred within the Indian
Contiguous zone at approximately 20.5 nautical miles off
the coast of Kerala in southern India near traditional Indian
fishing grounds in the Laccadive Sea.
At the time
of the incident, the MT Enrica Lexie was transiting through Indian Customs
Waters. The Enrica Lexie had failed to obtain clearances from Indian
authorities for the commercially contracted armed guards from the Italian Navy.
Indian customs waters are defined as the waters extending into the sea up to
the limit of contiguous zone of India under section 5 of the Territorial
Waters, Continental Shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone and other Maritime Zones
Act, 1976 (80 of 1976). India's Ministry of Shipping guidelines
SR-13020/6/2009-MG(pt.) dated 29 August 2011 makes it mandatory for all Indian
and Foreign commercial merchant vessels with armed guards and military weapons
to obtain a Pre-Arrival Notification for Security (PANS) clearance prior to
entrance and transit through either the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) or
the Indian Search and Rescue Region (ISRR).
Indian Coast
Guard intercepted and ordered the Enrica Lexie to dock at Kochi port. Forensic
analysis by Indian police concluded that fragments extracted from the corpses
of the slain Indian fishermen matched ammunition and the ballistic fingerprints
of automatic rifles issued to the 6-member Nuclei
Militari di Protezione (NPM) "team
Latorre" on board the Enrica
Lexie.
Portrayal of
the shooting as a successful Somali anti-piracy mission by the Italian Defence
Ministry and the Italian Government's subsequent denials to acknowledge that
the Italian Navy guards of "team Latorre" were responsible for the
deaths of two fishermen, caused outrage among Indian fishing communities.
The maritime
incident sparked a diplomatic row between the governments of India and Italy,
stemming from a conflict of opinions over legal jurisdiction and functional
immunity. India cited the 2005 Additional Protocol to the 1988 SUA and UNCLOS
articles 33 & 56 to investigate the deaths of two Indian fishermen who were
working onboard the Indian fishing boat St-Antony within Indian Customs Waters.
Indian authorities evoked settled State practice concerning extraterritorial
jurisdiction within the Contiguous Zone to bring the case to trial in India.
The
management of the Italian marines case by the UPA coalition government of Manmohan Singh is being closely watched in the run-up
to the 2014 general elections in India for signs of leniency towards Italy by
the Congress-party led UPA government whose chairperson is Italian-born Sonia Gandhi.[1][2][3]
The case is
currently under investigation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and
will go to trial at a Special Court set-up to deal exclusively with this
incident.
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Some comments from Hub pages, before removing Hub
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Some comments from Hub pages, before removing Hub
I don't see in what way they couldn't be pirates. After all, Italians belong to NATO. It reminds me of those two American Jews hiking in Iranian mounts. Sure! And Indians can't be right facing westerners! It is typical from neocolonialist minds. Indians are sovereign on their soil, on their waters why would Italians be righter than them?
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Dear maxoxam41, thank you for reading my hub and commenting, but you seem to have missed the main point about what my hub is all about. You seem to jump to conclusion that have nothing to do with the facts in my hub; and even though you are in the USA you still separate yourself completely from the USA culture and become a citizen of the world, because you still want to be an Indian and attack any other culture, even when they might be right.
Anyhow my hub apart that it wants to defend my marines countrymen, it also wants to prove that somehow people don't listen to each other and want to push their own ways even if they have to twist the truth a fair bit, which seems to be the case here; just think about it, if somebody that belongs to the Italian Navy marines could at the same time be a pirate or terrorist while doing his duty as a marine. The whole issue here is that they could and should only be tried as marines that might have made a mistake
Doesn't the inclusion of a meaningless identifier such as "American Jews" in the comment say all that we need to know?
That said, this is an interesting hub about a subject that I suspect will become of more and more importance as we progress into the 21st century: The meaning of international waters; issues of jurisdiction in international waters.
Hi, mbuggieh, thanks for your comment, at least you see the need that there needs to be an independent jurisdiction to decide matters on international waters, thank you for that, because that would have helped a lot in this case. I hope that common sense prevails and the Indians let the Italian courts or an international court hear this complicated case.
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