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I think it would be better if the coast guard was directly quoted in the below. It reads now as a statement of fact, but at this early stage everything should be clearly stated as being the POV of the speaker.
The Coast Guard criticised the Italian ship for not following accepted procedures of trying to carry out evasive manoeuvres or firing warning shots and also questioned the claim that a boat with a maximum speed of 8 knots was chasing the 58,000 tonne tanker.
Done. Have replaced the sentence with the quote. Chocolate Horlicks (talk) 05:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
date of the event
the event is reported in different hour, different position and different boat, according to italian or indian sources. the page need an update because now is POV--Dwalin (talk) 11:46, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Reactions
There were more ractions from italy (saw on ndtv today_). Also has quattorichis stooge not said anythign yet? Considering INC govt in kerala?Lihaas (talk) 14:23, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Name of the article
Hi, This is to discuss and arrive at a consensus on title for the article. The article was initially created by me with the title "2012 Indian fishermen killings". This was moved by User:Rameez pp to "2012 Italian shooting in the Arabian sea" (current title) and the reason given was "Fishermen killing also refers any incident on India beaches involving locals, or minor incidents". We've had a quick chat and feel that a discussion was needed to arrive at a consensus on the title. Lets add our thoughts below. (I hope this is the right place for the discussion, please let me know if this has to be discussed in some project page/move request page). Chocolate Horlicks (talk) 03:04, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
(1): I concede that the initial title may not have been the best. However, if it is changed due to the reason "Fishermen killing also refers any incident on India beaches involving locals, or minor incidents", the current title is also flawed to an extent since the Italian navy (as part of the CTF 150) has ongoing anti-piracy operations in the Arabian Sea along with a host of other countries, there have/will be more than one shootings by the Italian navy in the Arabian Sea.
(2): The current title also omits the death/killing of the fishermen which is an important aspect at least from the Indian POV and also the reason why this has escalated into a row between India and Italy.
(3): Most of the primary news agencies in India refer to "Fishermen Deaths" (or variants thereof) as the title for their ongoing reporting/updates (here is NDTV, Indian Express, CNN IBN, First Post, India Today and Times of India). User:Rameez pp had suggested that I check neutral/Italian sources for their usage: as most of them dont have ongoing reporting with multiple stories, its usually some variant of "Italian guards detained in India for fishermen deaths".
(4): I'd propose a title along the lines of 2012 Italian shooting of Indian fishermen or 2012 shooting of Indian fishermen by Italian marines. I think this would be free of POV as it mentions both Italian and Indian aspects and also the shooting is not disputed only the circumstances are (whether the fishermen tried to board/acted aggressively or whether the Italians followed proper procedure, etc.) Chocolate Horlicks (talk) 03:26, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
no, it is also disputed the shooting, for the italian version the boat was different, the date different, position different, there was 20 guy on the boat and made 20 bullets, (12 from 1 marò, 8 from the other). for the indian version thare had been used 60 bullet, of with 16 on the boat and 4 in the corpes, the italian navy has a registry of every bullet used. so.....the name is POV, because determin a correlation between italian navy and indian fisherman, correlation that is not obvius (italian navy has a photo in wich is hard to distinguish the type of the boat, but can be recognized the colour, and else the colour is different...). so.......all incorrect, so, return to previous name, indian fisherman killed in arabian sea--Dwalin (talk) 10:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
mixed sources
the page is a mix of indian and italian sources of date, is to update with the difference among italian and indian sources, for bullets, location, type and colour of boat, number of bullets used, there are not only 1 version of all. can bring you the information....bun cannot include them because i'm not english so it will be hard to include informations--Dwalin (talk) 10:50, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree that there are many versions of the story going around. The sources provided appear to be in Italian, are there any English editions of these websites ? Chocolate Horlicks (talk) 04:13, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
no, italian, i make all the nuclear power project in it:wiki. because i'm italian, i'm not able to add information, only to read and say where the information are uncorrect or POV.--Dwalin (talk) 11:22, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
§ official stance on the matter in english can be found on the Italian Navy website as follows [6]— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zenobio (talk • contribs) 18:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Added UNCLOS articles
I have added UNCLOS related articles under legal jurisdiction with direct UNCLOS website reference
It's added for proper referencings HotWick (talk) 17:10, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
§ reference to article 27 and 28 subsection B of UNCLOS should also be added
The section on Legal Jurisdiction is becoming too big. I would suggest writing the section in a wikipedia summary style citing the actual UNCLOS article along with complete text in a footnote. Desione (talk)
I feel it is not necessary to put the daily court proceedings inn Wiki, as Wiki is not a Log book. Only the verdicts should be sufficient. Anish Viswa 08:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
The daily timeline update of proceedings can be necessary as it is Current news article. HotWick (talk) 16:27, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
I think in time someone will summarize, but for now I added all the sources and events of a story that is rapidly developing. In my opinion it helps to clarify Desione (talk) 04:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
POV
I added the POV template as the first three sections are not fairly balanced. What the reader is missing is that the two parties are basically telling a completely different story and that Italians do maintain that two distinct and different accidents happened that day at see. I object to the current version in which the editors seem to convey the message that the Indian version (the two accidents are actually a single accident) is factually correct. This is suggested by an inappropriate sectioning (e.g. that there are "Victims" related to the Italian reported accident is just pushing the Indian POV) and a poor content editing in which the two versions are mixed and - moreover - the Indian POV has always a rebuttal granted (e.g. This sentence 'A statement by India's ministry of external affairs denied that the fishermen were armed.' inserted into a paragraph reporting on the official Italian report implicitly implies that the two accidents are indeed a single accident - as per the Indian POV). I would suggest splitting the first three sections into two: Italian version and Indian version but I'm ready to accept any other solution that would enable the reader to clearly understand that the are two very different and conflicting versions --147.122.42.34 (talk) 19:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
personally i don,t see much interest in this article from those who can read italian and are familiar with Italian news sources, so what this article lacks is someone who can tell the Italian side of the story. I hope you are willing to take the time and effort to contribute towards this article rather than sitting on the side and criticizing those who are actually taking the time and effort to write this article. Desione (talk) 04:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
I was taught to reach consensus on wikipedia using the talk page before becoming too bold and risking to ignite an edit war. I am following the guidelines explaining my reasons, giving examples and making proposals. Those who are removing a prefectly legitimate template should maybe take a second reading at Wikipedia:NPOV_dispute. I'm ready to make some big changes to the first three sections as soon as you whish but I'd like to understand if a consensus exists at this time or can be reached here. --78.12.170.211 (talk) 10:32, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Please do sir. The only thing I would suggest is that you get a wikipedia user account since your ip address keeps on changing. It will be easier to distinguish your edits from everyone else with a changing ip address that way. Also, this is not a very important or significant topic nor does this article have a lot of edit interest from wikipedia users. All we are really doing here is collating media reports, so not much here to worry about with respect to WP:NPOV and WP:CON. There is plenty of space for divergent viewpoints. Desione (talk)
I am leaving the npov tag in the hope that you will start editing. If not I will remove in a week or so. Best Regards Desione (talk) 05:46, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Dear Desione, you write that "personally i don,t see much interest in this article from those who can read italian and are familiar with Italian news sources, so what this article lacks is someone who can tell the Italian side of the story". I think that there is an interest from those who can read Italian in having English written news about Italy. Just because in Italy there is not much talk about these facts. If you read Italian newspapers, it seems that the only important thing is to have the Italian soldiers freed, be they innocent or guilty. Italian soldiers on Italian newpapers and newlines are innocent by definition. If you look on the Italian version of Wikipedia there is not even a line about this fact. yesterday some tried to add a couple of lines about it and they were immediately removed. This topic is a copmlete taboo in the Italian Wikipedia [please see http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggimento_%22San_Marco%22 and try to add any reference to the episode, you will see it removed in a couple of minutes]. So I am happy that I can read it here, and I am happy that there is a page devoted to it. Tinkerpast (talk) 13:25, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Indian Equivalent Currency and Currency Sign
In the section labeled monetary compensation, it might be a good idea to mention the Indian equivalent of the currency which would be 1 crores Indian rupee which is appropriately 150,000 euros.
It might be a good idea if we could use, ₹ indian rupee sign instead of Rs., since rupees is used in a lot of difference countries. Perhaps we can also include INR infront of a few so to make it clear to the readers that the equivlent is in Indian Rupee.
We should use standard currencies here. So instead of using US Dollar at some point and then euros at others, we should make the article completely in Euros and Indian Rupees as this would bring more consistency to this article. Now we cannot use all the major currency and show its equivalent so since this article is pertaining to India and Italy we would stick with these two. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Igodspeed (talk • contribs) 18:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
I have removed the link to "Indian rupee" before each figure (pointless, only needed once)... and the Rupee signs. Most Indians overwhelmingly use 'Rs.' for rupees, after all the symbol is barely a couple of years old, and I would guess that many (most?) Indians have no idea what the rupee symbol means. Furthermore, lakhs and crores are not understandable to most people outside India. It's quite clear that when "rupees" are mentioned in this article, that it's talking about Indian rupees, and the initial mention of rupees clearly states this. 82.153.116.77 (talk) 13:05, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Olympic Fair
Just because someone tried to allegedly rob a boat docked 2.5 miles away from the Kerala coast, it doesn't mean that it is related to the shooting on high seas that this article focuses on. You need to bring up reliable sources that explicitly state that there is a connection, otherwise this is completely unrelated to the topic and an original research - something that is a big NO on wikipedia when it comes to writing articles (see WP:OR). Desione (talk) 05:31, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I disagree since all the article and the criminal investigation is based on the assumption that there is a link between 24 shots fired near a boat full of allegedly armed pirates and the killing of two fishermen by armed men aboard a tanker. The two facts, if you compare the two versions, seem to have happened about 8 NM apart. So why do you believe that the report of an attack of pirates by a tanker in the same afternoon and about 12 NM away is not a valuable information for the readers?
You probably know that the surviving fishermen were not able to tell the name of the tanker from which the shots had been fired. If Enrica Lexie had not reported any attack to indian authorities she would not be today under custody in India. So every reported pirate attack to a tanker (not "a boat"!) in that part of India and in that afternoon is obviously an important information . Only the outcome of the investigation will tell us if such facts are related or not. Moreover there is no original research here since the story of Olympic Flair is in many newspapers and public websites. Anyway I accept your suggestion and so I have added some references to italian press websites, all giving the same information, connecting the greek tanker story to this incident. Unfortunately I was unable to find any indian website reporting same facts. Facts that are not italian speculation because they are reported by the official ICC website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.54.67.84 (talk) 21:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, all I was looking for was reliable sources. Desione (talk) 07:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
On 16:12, 29 October 2012, anonymous contributor 87.64.118.39 removed a whole section because it quoted "a blog post by a STUDENT from a law school !!!! A STUDENT cannot be cited as an 'expert' !!!" (sic)
While this remark has merit, in doing so he/she also removed references to opinion of legitimate international law experts Prof. Natalino Ronzitti (Chair of International Law at "LUISS"- Rome and an advisory expert for IAI) and Prof. Joseph William Davids, ESQ., LL.M.
Accordingly, barring any objection here, I am going to reinstate that section, obviously after having deleted the inappropriate reference to the law student and possibly reworded the text.
Anonymous contributor 87.64.8.146 deleted the a/m input by other anonymous contributor 93.144.71.46 on ground as follows: "Removed text : Many legal experts have blogged about this case and Wiki cannot possibly cite every one of them ! Only factual info necessary. Opinions go elsewhere."
I tend to disagree with anonymous contributor 87.64.8.146, since divergent interpretations of international law is a big part of this incident.
Possibly an had hoc section could be added.
I would like to see a discussion here on the talk page about that ... or at least to read somebody else's opinion.
Italian contributors editing Wiki article with spin
Am I the only person who thinks that there is a problem with the 'spin' that is being put onto this Wiki article ? i'l like Wiki supervisors to check & monitor the contributions made by some contributors which appears to me as a slow and deliberate effort to modify the article to suit the Italians. We need this article to be objective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.64.53.178 (talk) 01:40, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Request Wikipedia to proceed with clean-up and verification of sources so as to bring this article in line with Wiki guidelines for content contributions. I have noticed that there are sections where this article is being deliberately and systematically modified progressively so as to push forward the case of the Italians. This is most evident in the sections pertaining to legal jurisdiction and allegations about the Indian Coast Guard having tricked the Enrica Lexie. Can someone arbitrate on this matter so as to keep this article neutral and only present facts and not allegations, opinions of all kinds, minor related incidents (Ferrari F1 team's italian flag, Indian Catholic priest's comments, etc.,) ? 87.64.53.178 (talk) 01:54, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I was amazed by the amount of Italian bias in this article. I think that I can consider myself as neutral to this article since I am from Belgium and have not interest in either parties to this event. However, I am shocked by the amount of Italian 'spin' and have therefore taken steps to clean-up this article. I want to say that it is not possible to start quoting every Italian and Indian law lecture or else we will have a VERY long wiki article !!! So, please take the technical debates elsewhere and re--focus the Wiki article on FACTS presented in a NEUTAL manner and with SOURCES CITED all along the way. 87.64.53.178 (talk) 02:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Hello, Editor 87.64.53.178, and welcome to the talk page. I am one of those Italian Editors you accuse of "editing Wiki article with spin".
Actually, what we are trying to do is exactly the opposite, i.e to "neutralize" an article that, at least from my POV, seems quite flattened to Indian official stance. The problem may, at least in part, come from the fact that, as already stated by Editor 89.97.208.106 on this same talk page at that "Location of the shooting" section, there is "a language bias on news sources, in the sense that Italian language news tend to show and elaborate facts supporting the Italian official stances, while English language news about this fact is in great part from Indian sources that tend to lend towards Indian official position".
You can find a brief bi-lingual (Italian and English)Italian official statement here:[7] (already some sections above linked above in this same page), and a very thoughtful alternative reconstruction of the facts, from the Italian perspective, and very critic towards the Indians, here: [8]. Please believe (I presume you cannot read in the Italian language) that pretty much all the Italian news, official communicates are onthe tone of this latter documents.
Knowing that,how you can deny the present article, as it is and as you apparently want it to remain, is a lot closer to Indian then to Italian official positions (and sentiments)?
Please also read comment to sections "date of the event","mixed source","Olympic Fair"(sic),"POV" and "Diplomatic fallout".
Finally, let me observe the only neutral sources I could find till now are those debates on International Law Forums you repeatedly removed from the article.
@everyone I am note really surprised by Editor 87.64.53.178 who writes "Actually, what WE are trying to do is exactly the opposite,". The word "WE" !!! There is a CONCERTED effort by several contributors to modify this Wiki article. It is plain to see. I STRONGLY suggest to everyone to check the Edits History for this article and it is AMAZING who many edits come from Italian ISPs and Italian editors !!! As for the news sources they use, it is always biased and taken from italian sources. I don't need to read Italian to understand that the articlas present the Italian perspective on this case. I think that it is best to wait for a SENIOR WIKI staffer to view and give a decision on how to move forward. Because, it is clear that the article is being systematically and progressively modified by contributors whose IPs can easily be tracked back to Italian ISPs !!! 87.64.53.178 (talk) 16:16, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear 87.64.53.178
1)be assured,there is no conspiracy here. I do not deny to be Italian, and I wrote "we" referring to contributor 89.97.208.106 (who expressed the same rationale about lack of pro-Italian-stance English-language sources) and myself.
2) as far as I know, there is no prohibition to edit for Italians
3) I agree about several Italians editing this article. However I think this is simply because what we read on this English wikipedia article is so different from what we read on our press and other media news; for sure this is true for me, and I think you can find other people expressing similar ideas on this talk page.
@Editors/Contributors: (1) Kindly place your text inclusions here in the talk page for discussion before inclusion within the main article. Else, I'm going to revert the article back into it's original form until and upto the point where Wikipedia supervisors arbitrate on the text's validity. (2) The fact that the Italian media has a 'nationalist bias' on the coverage of this news item, does not mean that this bias should be reflected in the Wikipedia article. Please cite internationally recognized media sources which have a mostly good reputation for unbiased reporting on global issues (eg: BBC, AFP, Reuters, etc.,) instead of Italian & Indian national media. This point especially if the point refers to a 'undisclosed source' or an 'unofficial comment' or a speculative topic. (3) let us stick to the facts by quoting OFFICIALS who are mandated by the italian and Indian Governments to speak on this case instead of relying on 'legal experts' (kindly avoid legal experts who are also incidentally Italian government-paid legal advisers) & bloggers columnists ! 87.64.53.178 (talk) 01:55, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi @2.40.81.135, I've been reading-up on this incident ever since I got interested in this wikipedia article. I've mostly concentrated on court documents and independently verifiable information from trusted sources (IMO, UN, UNCLOS, ICJ, etc.,). There are a few points that I'd like to highlight and which I'd like to throw open for discussion :
A> The Indian court documents are systematically translated from english into Italian language by court approved translators. So, why cannot the Italian media obtain these translations so as to independently cross-verify the facts and information submitted by both parties in this case ? This may probably help the Italian media and public better understand the scope and content of documents and information submitted under oath by the Italian government, ship owners, ship crew, military detachment, investigative authorities, etc.,
B> Why did the Italian legal team submitted 'bogus' documents (with unverifiable signatures of the Marines) to the Indian Courts ? The judges could not get any explanation from the Italian legal-defense team on how they managed to obtain signatures on dates where the Italian marines were already under police custody and could not have physically signed the documents. According to Court documents, the Italian legal-defense team were made to resubmit the documents after the "defects" were "cured". What is the rationale behind submitting documents containing signatures whose authenticity can be called into question ? [9][10][11]
C> For what reason are the Italian authorities not requesting an extradition of the 2 Italian marine guards from India ? What is preventing Italy from initiating this procedure and working towards obtaining the extradition of their defense service personnel ?
D> The Italian authorities have informed the Indian Courts that a judicial process is 'underway' in Italy both in the civil and military tribunals. What is the status and chronology of events in these two processes ? What information has been been exchanged with the Indian investigators and judicial authorities ?[12]
E> General consensus on the topic of jurisdiction appears to validate the point which is already stated in the wikipedia article : "whilst Italy will need to show 'exclusive' jurisdiction, India only needs to show that it 'also has' jurisdiction"
F> India has one of the largest maritime surveillance capabilities in the Indian Ocean region. It's terrestrial and space based assets can easily be used to clarify certain grey areas in this case. AIS tracking data, maritime radar tracking plots and satellite photo-reconnaissance imagery from both civil and defense agencies can/could/should be sought. Has this been done ? If not, why cannot it be asked for by the investigative authorities and/or the Indian Courts ?
G> Why did the Captain of the Enrica Lexie not immediately archive the VDR data as he is legally required to do in the event of an 'incident' on board his vessel ?
H> What are the results of the ballistic tests conducted by the Indian authorities ? Do the projectiles found embedded on the Italian fishing vessel and the bodies of the victims match any of the weapons & ammunition types issued to Italian marine VPDs ?
I> Can we see independently verifiable supporting documents to chronologically understand the actions onboard the Enrica Lexie in the first 3 hours after the incident ? Why did the Italian legal-defense team not provide documentary proof in support of their claim of the chain of events ? Do we know what actions were taken and communications sent exchanged prior to the Indian Coast Guard contacting the Enrica Lexie ? What time did the following events take place onboard the Enrica Lexie : filing of the Military report, activation of the Ship Alert Security System (SASS) and notification to the UK based MSCHOA ?
J> Interesting piece of information ("President Napolitano ratifies India-Italy prisoner accord") : India and Italy have signed an agreement which allows for prisoners to serve their prison terms in their 'home' country. [13]
Indeed, technology makes it easy to unmask Sock Puppetry. There is no point in using multiple accounts, proxies and access points to add/modify/delete content on wikipedia. 22:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC)87.64.53.178 (talk) 13:28, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi editor 87.64.27.178, quickly replying your questions
A>honestly I don’t know, I think you should ask Italian reporters. However it may be that such translations are kept undisclosed by the Marines’ lawyers. I could find nothing about that on the web
B> no clue, what we hear from our news is that Italian authorities presented the documents as official documents filed by Italy as a state (so, I suppose , those signatures could have been made by Latorre and Girone’s higher ranked officers in the Italian Navy) while that was rejected by Indian courts who expected the documents to be filled by Latorre and Girone as individuals. Please notice that these respective stances are consistent with Italian and Indian different approaches to this matter, as I am going to elaborate later (point E)
C> as I understand it, Italy asked for that but it was rejected by Kerala court, on the ground that this latter deems to have the jurisdiction to put the Italians on trial.
D>The Italian trial is underway only in the sense that a file has been opened. No further news from last spring, after that witnesses in Italy haves been interrogated, and their testimony has been put under secret. :This is however not so unusual for Italian judiciary. On a side note, while on this case a lot of fuss from Italian part was about Indian courts slowness, Italian tribunals can actually be even slower.
E> well, no, that is rather the Indian official stance, albeit one admittedly well-grounded on international treaties.
However Italy opposes that the principle of functional immunity of military personnel on service, according to which military people doing something according to their orders should not be considered personally liable in civil or penal court of their acts. In other words, according to this principle, the two marines should be considered same as two robots remote-controlled by Rome, so that New Delhi would have rather cause to ask official apologies, compensations or even (heaven forbids!) wage war to Rome than to convict those two individuals.
This legal principle is controversial, and has very seldom be applied, for the simple fact that it is relevant only in those very rare incidents where one country military harms people or properties of another country, without any previous hostility pre-existing between them. Last time it was for the France Vs. New Zealand Raimbow Warrior affaire, and there has been no final judgment from any international court/arbitrate to fix an international rule. You can find a quite interesting lecture about that here [14] (one of those links that had repeatedly been posted and removed from the main article)
Another issue would rise if it were proved that the EnricaLexie was in International waters when it was directed (lured? Tricked?) to Kochi port by Indian Coast Guard . In this case, ICC lacked jurisdiction to do so, so the marines would have been arrested illegally[15]. If they could nevertheless be tried by Indians rests on another controversial principle, that of male captus bene detentus.
On those international laws fora/blogs that has been mentioned on this page, somebody speculates that India could reject Italian requests, and Italy could then denounce India at some International Court, so that the validity of a/m controversial legal principles could be tested and enter or be excluded from International Law [16]
F> A very good point I too wondered about. Please consider that also Italy own spy satellites, and both countries could ask assistance from countries that are in amicable relations with both, such as USA, Russia, France, UK, etc.
My personal speculation is that Italy and India both has something to hide, possibly the technological level of their spy systems ;-) Again, this is just my speculation.
G>Unknown. I find on Italian news sources that that was asked by Italian prosecutors, but that thecaptain replies had been considered not very reliable. Again, no official source available, AFAIK.
H> again I could find no official sources, only news reports citing undisclosed unofficial informants or similar. Indian officials does not seem to be more open to disclose evidences than Italians.
I> yes, albeit that treaty had been started to be prepared long before this incident, it has been mentioned that, even if Latorre and Girone were found guilty and sentenced in India, at least they could serve the time in their country. That is also true for another dozen Italians presently in Indian prisons, and for more than 100 Indian citizens incarcerated in Italy
as to puppet socketry, my impression is that the first three post on this section were an attempt at that, but I think there is no need to make a big deal about it, do you? ;-)
oh, BTW I am the same person as editor 2.40.81.135, no trick, just a non-static IP :-) 87.22.185.30 (talk) 16:47, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi 2.40.81.135 aka 87.22.185.30, thanks for your replies to the points I raised. Nice to see that this level-headed discussion appears to help move forward ;)
BTW, OK for the non-static IP. Knowing that the wikipedia signature-bot will automatically fill-in my signature I do/did not care to append 4 tildas to my comments. Also, I have to admit that most often I just simply forget to append the 4 tildas at the end of my text submission.
I am trying to read and re-read the full-text versions of the various court documents to fully understand the chronology and verifiable facts that have been submitted by both parties. I've reformulated certain portions of the wiki article so that speculative aspects are clearly indicated and made distinct from facts that are not disputed. I am not going to remove any text unless it is a baseless allegation which is not supported by verifiable information sources. Simultaneously, I am scouring the internet for true copies of the full-text version of court documents.
Can you please give your feed-back on point "I" that I raised in my previous post regarding the possibility of finding independently verifiable supporting documents to chronologically understand the actions on-board the Enrica Lexie in the first 3 hours after the incident ? Is there any trustworthy posted onto Italian language websites that can be of use to reliably reconstruct the events timeline ? 87.64.53.178 (talk) 03:44, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Hello 87.64.53.178,
as to your request of official documents from Italian side, unfortunately there are very few of them, since Italian prosecutors, consistently with Italian legal procedure secreted all witnesses reports, waiting for the actual (Italian) trial. This on turn is frozen now, supposedly (again, there is a scarcity of sources) waiting for Indian Supreme Court sentence about jurisdiction, after which the Italian court will either wait for the Marines repatriation or start a trial in absentia.
Best I could find to now is this letter[17] by Italian FM Terzi to a newspaper ("L'eco di Bergamo") which has also been posted on the Farnesina (=Italian Foreign affair Ministry) web site, so we can certainly consider it an official source. I post here only the part concerning the shooting incident (Minister Terzi writes also about other unconnected facts)
L'ingresso della nave Enrica Lexie in acque indiane è stato il risultato di un sotterfugio della polizia locale, che ha richiesto al comandante della nave di dirigersi nel porto di Kochi per contribuire al riconoscimento di alcuni sospetti pirati. La «consegna» dei marò è poi avvenuta solo a seguito di un'azione di forza della polizia indiana che era salita a bordo della Enrica Lexie. Di fronte a queste circostanze, l'obiettivo immediato - poi raggiunto - era quello di ottenere condizioni di detenzione favorevoli e adeguate allo status di membri delle forze annate, eseguire immediatamente tutte le azioni che assicurassero un'efficace presenza italiana «nel vivo» di tutte le indagini, e fare in modo che la difesa legale, in tutti i gradi di giudizio, avvenisse con costante impegno e con la presenza di un team qualificatissimo di giuristi italiani e internazionali. Sono oltre cinquanta i funzionari, tra legali, periti, diplomatici, impegnati su questo dossier.Sul piano diplomatico il ministero degli Esteri, in stretto raccordo con i ministeri della Difesa e della Giustizia e sotto la guida della presidenza del Consiglio, svolge un'azione a tutto campo per far valere i due principi fondamentali che, secondo il diritto internazionale, si applicano a questo specifico episodio: la giurisdizione esclusiva dello stato di bandiera nelle acque internazionali e l'immunità di due militari che operano quali agenti dello Stato italiano nell'attività di contrasto alla pirateria. Si tratta di un'azione di sensibilizzazione condotta con il sostegno di importanti Paesi amici e organizzazioni internazionali. Abbiamo portato il caso all'attenzione dell'Unione europea, del G8, dell’Asean. Io stesso ne ho parlato al Segretario generale delle Nazioni Unite Ban Ki-moon. Sarebbe troppo lunga per gli spazi di un quotidiano l'elencazione dettagliata degli oltre 100 incontri nei quali ho personalmente sollevato la questione in occasione di colloqui bilaterali con i paesi a noi più vicini o di conferenze internazionali. Poche settimane fa lo stesso presidente del Consiglio, nel più vasto e autorevole consesso internazionale dell'Assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite, ha sottolineato come il «precedente indiano» possa pericolosamente ripercuotersi sull'efficacia delle operazioni internazionali di contrasto della pirateria e del terrorismo.
my quick translation:
" Enrica Lexie ship entering into Indian waters has been the result of a subterfuge by the local police, who required the the ship master to head to the port of Kochi in order to contribute to the identification of some suspected pirates. The “arrest” of the marò (=Italian marines) was just the result of an action of force by the Indian police who forcefully went on board of the Enrica Lexie. In these circumstances, our immediate task - that we managed to reach - was e to obtain favorableconditions of detainment which had to be adequate to the status of armed forces members, to immediately act so that all the actions that assured an effective Italian presence “on live” at all investigations, and to make so that the legal defense, in all the degrees of judgment, happened with constant engagement and the presence of the most qualified team of Italian and international lawiers. More than fifty civil employees are working on this dossier, including lawyers, technical experts and diplomats.
On the diplomatic plan the [Italian] Foreign affair ministry, in tight touch with the Justice and Defense Ministries and under the guide of the Presidency of the Council ([i.e Italian Prime minister], carries out an action at all levels in order to push the two fundamental principles that, according to the International Law, are to be applied to this specific episode: the exclusive jurisdiction of the flag state in the international waters and the immunity of two military people that operate against piracy as agents of the Italian State. We are talking a bout an action meant to sensitize [the Indian Authorities] carried on with the support of important friendly countries and international organizations. We have presented the case to the attention of the European Union, the G8, the Asean. Myself spoke with the General Secretary of United Nations Ban Ki-moon. The detailed list would be too long for the spaces of a daily paper since more than 100 meetings were held, during which I have personally raised the issue in occasion of bilateral talks with the our closest countries or during international conferences. Few weeks ago the same Prime Minister, in the largest and most authoritative international assembly, i.e the United Nations General Assembly, emphasized how an “Indian precedent" could dangerously damage the effectiveness of the international operations meant to contrast piracy and terrorism."
Interesting. If no objection here on the talk page, I am going to edit the main article in the next few days, by including the a/m source and modifying the relevant sections accordingly. 93.144.82.96 (talk) 21:29, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi 93.144.82.96, and welcome to the discussion on how to render the wikipedia article on this incident as factually correct as possible. I hope that we can gain access to Italian court documents and/or get a progress-report on exactly what is the status of the court case in Italy and also the military investigating tribunal in Italy.
Kindly feel free to contribute with MULTIPLE INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIABLE information sources that will help cross-verify the allegations made by Minister Terzi in the interview given to the Italian newspaper. You will note that 87.22.185.30 clearly mentioned that the above statement was Giulio Terzi's opinion and has not been communicated by the Italian Governement in any of the statements that were submitted to the Indian courts. At no point has the Italian legal-defense team or Giulio Terzi himself submitted any form of proof whatsoever to back-up the 'allegation' of subterfuge by the local police.
Let us be clear : this statement is just an 'allegation' and will remain as such so long as there is no proof (Enrica Lexie's VDR recording, maritime radio-telephony monitoring/intercept reports or e-mails exchanged with the Indian Police or Indian Coast Guard). To illustrate the point let me clarify : take the section about what the highest ranking Indian Navy officer in the area of operations (Vice-Admiral K.N. Sushil) stated in an interview to the media. Just the fact that he gave an interview does not mean anything. It is common knowledge that politicians and diplomats will say one thing to earn diplomatic or electoral mileage and do something entirely different or not at all. Therefore, I went through the court documents submitted by both parties (Italy & India) which are now freely available and circulating on the internet. In the inventory list of evidence that has been submitted, there is NO WHERE any documentary evidence of VDR recordings for the first 24 hours after the incident took place. However, the Indian Coast Guard has submitted duty officer's report containing references to radio traffic and electronic messages exchanged with the Enrica Lexie from the time the Indian Coast Guard first contacted the vessel. [18] Never once during the court proceedings did the Italian defense-team refute the veracity of the documentary proof that was submitted by the Indian Coast Guard even though they had the opportunity to do so OR to submit documentary evidence that supports a contradictory version of events/facts.
May I suggest that you thoroughly read the court documents that have already been released by the Indian Courts ? If supporting documentary evidence to confirm Giulio Terzi's statement is released to the Courts or into the public domain, then I am of the opinion that Giulio Terzi's statement can no longer be considered as 'purely speculative'.
As stated repeatedly, IF the text in the main article needs to be modified somewhere with speculative or controversial topics, please submit the full text first for discussion and consensus here on this talk page. In the mean time, let us limit updates to the main article to only verified facts, non-disputed happenings and to events that can be cross-verified from independent sources and/or for which Italy or India have submitted documentary evidence to back-up their claim. At this point, it seems best not to modify the main page with many more controversies and unverifiable information as is already there right now.
The Indian Supreme Court has reserved it's judgement on the question of jurisdiction for the time being. Once that ruling is rendered the court documents will throw more light on the legal aspects of the case. 87.64.53.178 (talk) 23:12, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
@87.64.53.178
I am the same person as 93.144.82.96 and also 93.144.71.46 (variable IP). I guess I was not clear enough. I certainly agree that one minister stating something does not make that something factually true. However, there are really few factually proven facts in this incident, maybe just that two people died of bullets ... and that the Greek Marine authority lied about the Olympic Flair never been attacked by pirates. For the rest,we have just conflicting claims from Indian and Italian sources, so I deem fair that both opposed sets claims are presented in the article with the same space, importance, etc.
That said, the article presently states Italian media quoting from undisclosed Italian sources have speculated that the Enrica Lexie Captain's log[25] [26] [27] [28][29] mentions that the ship was convinced to come to Kochi port by a message from the Indian Coast Guard reporting they were holding a boat with arms and suspected pirates on board, prospecting it could have been the one involved in the incident of the afternoon and inviting them to give statements. Neither the Indian Coast Guard nor the Italian authorities have issued an official confirmation to validate this claim
I would rather write: Echoed by press,[25] [26] [27] [28][29] Minister Terzi also stated on Italian Foreign Affair Ministry official website [add this citation] that the ship was convinced to come to Kochi port by a message from the Indian Coast Guard reporting they were holding a boat with arms and suspected pirates on board, prospecting it could have been the one involved in the incident of the afternoon and inviting them to give statements. Neither the Indian Coast Guard nor the Indian authorities have issued an official confirmation to validate this claim
Moreover, this same citation should be added to document Italian position about functional immunity (pls.refer to last new section about Sovereign immunity) and finally on the Impact on anti-piracy measures section, showing how Italy is lobbing pretty much everybody on the world to push the idea Italian interpretation of UNCLOS is the only fully compatible with effective anti-piracy actions.
2.40.126.48 (talk) 22:15, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
@93.144.82.96 and also 93.144.71.46 : I am glad that we concur on the fact that words will remain just words unless proven as being factually exact and independently verifiable. At present and in the absence of supporting documentary evidence to lend any credence to the aforementioned allegations, it is best to regroup all the speculative aspects of this incident here on the talk page. There is absolutely nothing that forbids anyone from having a discussion here in the 'talk' section about any speculative and controversial issues.
The main Wikipedia article must strive to be as close to the truth as possible. So, I once again ask you to please submit any documentary records of the communications which took place between the Enrica Lexie and the Indian authorities (Indian Coast Guard, Indian Police, etc.,) before wanting to make any amendments to the main article. Else, these amendments appear like a lobbying effort for the Italian narrative. 87.64.53.178 (talk) 23:44, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
what lobbying effort? of course aministers can be wrong or even lie, but that that ministers declared so (correctly or wrongly we do not know) is factual, and also relevant, since it is a very authoritative stance from one of the conflicting parts. 93.144.84.15 (talk) 06:35, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Listen, I can understand the point that you are trying to make. But kindly note that it is essential that this wikipedia article not become multi-page article with "he/she said" and "they replied". Do you really want to see EVERY single statement by an Italian and Indian politician and/or official recorded in this wikipedia article ? If yes, then be prepared to see this article inundated with hundreds of quotations and citations from every person starting from the owner of the fishing boat right to the Indian Defense Minister and passing through officials from the Indian Police, Indian Coast Guard, Indian Courts, etc., For your information the very fact that links have been provided to the italian news articles that have relayed Terzi's views is sufficient. 87.64.53.178 (talk) 12:44, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
...and I understand your point as well (the article is really becoming too long) except that neither the article nor any of the links provided actually mention it to be Minister Terzi's view. So I am going to do exactly that: removing some of the redundant citations in Italian language, putting Minister Terzi a/m letter to "Eco di Bergamo" and Ministry official website there instead.93.144.90.126 (talk) 18:36, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
If Terzi's allegations are included, it would only be only fair to also mention that this allegation is not coherent with the events timeline and description that has been submitted in Indian Courts. [19] The Indian version is that the Enrica Lexie was "forced by the Coast Guard to proceed and anchor at Kochi". Kindly view the full-text of the legal documents for yourself. 87.64.53.178 (talk) 20:30, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
OK. However (just pour parler) do you realize that if the ICC really forced the Enrica Lexie while in international waters (as now it seems they are), i.e. outside their jurisdiction, this would equate to piracy? If that really happened, this would strengthen the Italian position enormously, in particular in front of a possible international tribunal or arbitration. Remind, that statement was given in front of the Kerala court when the ICC insisted the facts happened 22 miles off shore, i.e. barely within Indian contiguous waters, while now it seems (as you know there are no official data on satellite positioning) it can be proved it was not so. 93.144.90.126 (talk) 21:22, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
@93.144.90.126 (just pour parler)
Wikipedia is not about lobbying for one side or the other. I am going strictly by the book: My sole aim is to make the wikipedia article as factually precise as possible. Je ne suis pas partie prenant!
I ABSOLUTELY do not care if it suits the Italians or the Indians. Each party to the court case understand the gravity of information that they are submitting under oath before a court of law. My primary interest is to make the article as neutral and balanced as possible based on reliable/verifiable facts or a concordance of independent witness statements. Therefore, I tend to hierarchically rely on sworn statements made in a court over an above an interview or press-statement given to the news media.
From all that I have read on the internet, it is evident that there are many conspiracy theories and speculative comments flying around. Politicians from both countries are having a field-day and busy scoring electoral points ! However, neither India or italy have officially accused each other of fraud. Oops sorry, there was the 'signature incident' where-in the Italian defense-team 'obtained' a signature from the Marines onto a sworn affidavit on a day when both the Italian marines were in jail and had received no visitors :0 C'était une erreur regrettable n'est pas ? ;) To quote Terzi "Polemiche su responsabilità le lascio ad altri" ("The polemics on responsibility I leave to others.") [20]
What I do know is that the Indian Coast Guard submitted under oath to the Kerala High Court a Board Officer's Report to complement a chronological version of events whose veracity was NOT CONTESTED by the counsel for the Italian marines. If the counsel for the Italian marines had objected, it would be clearly written in the full-text of the judgement. If the counsel for the Italian marines has not objected, it is because they have no grounds to object (because, when you object, you inherit the burden of proof to prove the contrary). For your info, you will also note that the Italian defense-team never provided the least form of documentary evidence to support their version of events for the hours that passed preceding the first contact by the Indian Coast Guard.
QUESTIONS/ RfC : Can anyone with expertise in Italian criminal law and italian martial law comment on the the following points :
(1) In Italy is an individual or a legal entity (like a commercial company or an association) or the Government allowed to be in possessions of evidence that is crucial to the outcome of a criminal case (especially when it could mean the acquittal of Italian soldiers accused of criminal offense in a foreign land) and not submit it to judicial & investigative authorities and where there is no National Security risk to Italy ?
(2) Does the Italian constitution allow an Italian military tribunal to with-hold information from the Italian civilian court system in a situation where-in there is no National Security risk to Italy BUT where there is on the other hand a clear risk of Italian soldiers being sentenced on criminal charges in a foreign country ?
(3) Is the withholding and/or non-submittal of such evidence illegal when it means that the outcome of the criminal case can differ considerably ?
(4) If Terzi in certain of his allegation of 'subversion' (media has used words like deception, subvertion, trickery, etc.,) on the part of Indian Coast Guard & Police officials, why/how has this information not been passed-on to be included in the defense of the marines who are retained in India ?
(5) Similarly, it has been claimed that the ICC Commercial Crimes Services has confirmed [21] to Luigi Di Stefano (scroll down the webpage to view Luigi Di Stefano's claim) that the olympic Flair reported a piracy incident in the vicinity of the Enrica Lexie. "After having formally requested the report to the ICC, I also received it. It contains the confirmation that on 15th February 2012 at 15:50 UTC 10 NM off Kochi (Cochin) aggressors attacked a vessel anchored there. Evidently the event has not been invented and it is clear that it could not be the "Enrica Lexie".I could download the report of the ICC after formal request and after having received a password. I am not allowed to publish it here, but if Italian judiciary asks for it I will be happy to provide it." If this is the case, why has this confirmation not been submitted to support a claim for mistaken identity by the Italian legal-defense team ?
(6) Do the two Italian marines have private lawyers ? If yes, why have these lawyers not petitioned the Italian courts to force the Italian Government and Italian military to release all documents that is pertinent to support the Italian narrative and which if/when submitted in India can lead to the acquittal of the marines in their Indian Supreme Court appeal ?
My guess is that everybody now is focused on the jurisdiction matter. As soon as the Indian Supreme Court will issue its sentence, I think the focus will shift towards the case actual merit, and evidences on the actual facts will come out. 89.97.208.106 (talk) 11:07, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
@89.97.208.106 Agreed. The process of vetting this article will move forward once the Indian Supreme Court announces it's verdict. Once the Supreme Court judgement is released into the public domain, we'll have not just the list of evidence submitted by both parties, the arguments/counter-arguments by both parties and also the verdict. Against that inventory list of court documents it will become possible to once again weed-out the speculations. In the mean time there is nothing much to do apart cosmetic cleaning-up of the wikipedia article, regrouping/removal of redundant information and also verify that the URLs that are cited are still relevant and valid.
I'm glad to see that the main-article is now more or less 'stabilized' without content vandalism and/or addition of more speculation and controversies. 87.64.20.5 (talk) 12:24, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
FAKE CONTENT ON OLYMPIC FLAIR SECTION
Content sourced from SEENINSIDE.NET website managed by Luigi Di Stefano is bogus !!!
WOW O WOW !!!! The entire Olympic Flair section of the main Wikipedia article is BOGUS !!!
As readers will recall, on 21st February the Greek merchant marine reported that no Greek ship had been attacked by pirates. So, where did this OLYMPIC FLAIR 'story' come from ?
I undertook to verify individually the original sources of information for each section which deals with controversies in the main article and SURPRISE SURPRISE : Luigi Di Stefano's webpage [22] on his website appears as the principle information source for this entire section.
Now, I continue and click on the links and what do we see ?
The attempt to change the facts by 'planting' data is very clever and most persons will not notice it straight away. But look very closely : compare the SEENINSIDE.NET webpage [23] and the ICC webpage [24] and you will notice that the word "OLYMPIC FLAIR" does not appear anywhere in the ICC Commercial Crimes webpage. It just says "CRUDE TANKER". Whereas, on the SEENINSIDE.NET webpage it is clearly written that this report was for the "OLYMPIC FLAIR".
Also, compare the 2 links : [25] and [26] and you will see that they are not the same.
As a precautionary measure, I've made screenshots of every single page of SEENINSIDE.NET website just in case SEENINSIDE.NET website gets taken down !
The piracy report [27] cited by Luigi Di Stefano's website SEENINSIDE.NET as being the original military report that was sent to the italian Navy is infact a 'fabricated replica' that has been created by and hosted on SEENINSIDE.NET website. Neither the content or the scope of the text cited in this fabricated image can be cross-verified in any manner.
Conclusion: I am removing the entire section on the OLYMPIC FLAIR and ask contributors to check their facts and sources before reintroducing this section. 87.64.20.5 (talk) 21:01, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I strongly disagree. Firstly di Stefano is a serious legal technical counselor. Second it's true that on ICC it is written only crude tanker,but that is just ICC policy for Privacy. Also other sources reports that ICC disclosed that tanker was the Olympic Flair, e.g. this one [28]. Finally, it is quite unorthodox to remove whole sections when just one of many citations is doubtful. Here some of the other sources: [29][30][31]2.40.126.48 (talk) 23:18, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
@2.40.126.48 It certainly is not unorthodox to remove a section pending re-load after content verification when the principle cite for the information refers to a source which has attempted to change the facts by 'planting' data and that the other sources which are referenced make an allegation without disclosing any information. For your information nowhere in the ICC communiqués was the name OCEAN FLAIR mentioned. If you have knowledge of a ICC webpage which makes a pointed reference to the OCEAN FLAIR then please provide the URL here.
For your info, the "Olympic Flair" section has been reinstated after redacting ONLY the section which cited erroneous content from SEENINSIDE.NET 87.64.20.5 (talk) 21:01, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
Again, there are very few "factual", independently stated and universally accepted facts in this mess, so I guess that what we need to do here is just to present both versions, trying not to lean towards any of them. However this of the Olympic flair is one of the few facts with some third party verification. ICC never mentioned the Olympic Flair with its name,but "Per confermare l'accaduto, l'Icc ha fornito anche il numero IMO, International Maritime Organization (8913966), della Olympic Flair cioé il codice che identifica univocamente ogni tipo di natante superiore alle 100 tonnellate." (my translation: "in order to confirm this had happened, ICC mentioned Olympic Flair International Maritime Organization number, i.e. 8913966. IMO numbers univocally identify vessels of all kinds that are over 100 tons")[32]93.144.84.15 (talk) 06:30, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
@2.40.126.48 & @93.144.84.15 : The section on Olympic Flair was reinstated (after content verification against the cited sources) within a few hours of it's removal. Two changes that were made are (1) removal of the cite linking to fabricated 'evidence' hosted on SEENINSIDE.NET and (2) correction/replacement of an erroneous URL linking to the webpage report on the ICC website.87.64.20.5 (talk) 11:29, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
Sovereign immunity & Territorial jurisdiction
@87.64.20.5
dear Editor,
I miss your rationale about the reference of ICG Germany v. Italy, Greece.
I followed that case too (as you may have noticed from my previous posts, I am quite fond about international law in particular as to "difficult" and controversial cases that could lead to addition to this peculiar legal corpus), and it was related to an Italian sentence condemning Germany to reparation damages for facts of WWII. Germany did not accept the Italian ruling, so that Italian judiciary sought to get the damages by sizing German properties located in Italy.
Fact is ICG ruled in favour of Germany, by recognizing that Sovereign immunity was applicable to the case. I read again the sentence on your link, and I could not find any indication about (in your words) ius cogens relating to international humanitarian law prevailing over sovereign immunity --this leaving aside the applicability to this shooting case, which IMHO seems quite different. Are you referring to some particular pass of the sentence I missed? may you report it here? Do not worry about translations, I can read French (even though there should exist an English version of the sentence too.
Moreover, I see you introduced in the article the concept of Functional Immunity, but just to say that India rejected it for so and so...
IMHO it would be both more understandable and neutral if 1) the Functional Immunity concept was briefly introduced and explained, with also Italian official POV about why it should apply 2) then it was explained that, not India but a Judge of Kerala Court rejected it and why 3) that the defendants did not accept the ruling and appealed to The Indian Supreme Court.
Just my two cents 89.97.208.106 (talk) 17:48, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
@89.97.208.106 hello and thanks for your feed-back. As mentioned earlier I am trying my level-best to navigate through the maze of information and disinformation that is surrounding this case.
My reference to the ICG Germany v. Italy, Greece case and ius cogens was included only because the shooting was termed by the families of the victims as an 'act of terrorism' vis-à-vis innocent fishermen who were earning their livelihood. Separately, the local fishing communities have made repeated references to their navigational rights (fishing vessels have right of way in maritime navigation laws) as well as to the freedom of fishing for fishermen from the littoral coast.
Your comments on jurisdictional immunity from prosecution for the Italian Marines based upon concepts of 'functional immunity' & 'sovereign immunity' is very valid and is a good suggestion. As always I support such suggestions which help clarify complex issues while at the same time ensuring neutrality. So, can you kindly make your suggestion for modifying the text here on this talk page ? 87.64.20.5 (talk) 19:53, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
well, as to the part related to ICG Germany v. Italy, Greece case I would remove it entirely, since there is no ius cogens (unless you want to state the fishermen really were pirates), no international humanitarian law (that exists in war times only, and here we luckily have no wars). You can find right to way for fishermen ion UNCLOS, not here.
as to the second part, we could state something the likes of:
"According to Italian government Italian marines enjoy functional immunity as they are military officers acting on on duty for the protection of Italian vessel against piracy." then you can add the Kerala judge sentence, and finally we can write that defendants appealed to Indian supreme court
--- forgot to sign 89.97.208.106 (talk) 08:02, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
@89.97.208.106 (1) Notion of jus cogens : aka Peremptory norm has been introduced because as per statements provided to the Courts as well as declarations made to the media by prominent Italian politicians who are part of the executive branch (Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Defense Minister) and released to the press : the Italian marines were deputed from the Italian Navy and 'committed' into a 'conflict zone' on a 'combat mission' to provide 'armed security services'. Therefore, the shooting of 'civilians' (through the use of disproportionate force and not in compliance of IMO guidance and BMP on gradual response) by armed soldiers on a combat mission in a conflict zone is in clear violation of International humanitarian law
(2) Immunity: The main Wikipedia article on this incident shows that the content modifications that you suggested for the "Impact on Anti-Piracy measures" section are already contained within the "Legal jurisdiction" section. There is no need to repeat this the same information in the "Impact on Anti-Piracy measures" section. I think that it would be a good idea to review redundant info that is contained in the following 2 sections : "Legal jurisdiction" and "Impact on Anti-Piracy measures". I think that "Impact on Anti-Piracy measures" can become a sub-section of "Legal jurisdiction" for better clarity. With regards to anti-piracy measures, the UN, EU, Italy and India are all in agreement that piracy is a scourge that has to be tackled. Furthermore, they also agree that the UN's rules & regulations as well as the IMO's and BMPs regarding anti-piracy measures are well defined and already in existence. However, as rightly pointed out by experts in maritime law and also echoed by the EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton, the legal aspects (including jurisdictional issues) and regulations pertaining to the monitoring, control/verification and sanction of the use of Private Security Contractors and Armed Military Guards needs to be addressed under the mandate of the International Maritime Organization.
(3) Third-party statements from international organizations : A quick search for UNSC, IMO and ICJ documents released into the public domain makes it apparent that at-least 3 UN security Council members (US, China, Russia) have expressed reservations on tweaking the current status-quo (for obvious geopolitical reasons) on matters of territorial jurisdiction and immunity from prosecution. The Italian claims of immunity for their soldiers and on court jurisdiction has not received any validation from any international organization (UN and/or EU). Likewise, Indian and Italian claims on jurisdiction afforded by their respective national laws have not been commented upon. The furthest that the EU would venture is to offer help to both Italy and India in arriving at a political/diplomatic solution to this issue. If there exist any official statement from international bodies (UN, EU, ICJ, IMO, ICC, etc.,) on this matter which supports the claims of either Italy or India which I may have missed while scouring the internet, kindly post them to this talk page.
(4) Personal thoughts : Going from official statements from Italy and India it appears to me that this incident is being dealt with on 2 levels within both these countries. At the highest levels of the executive branch of both Governments there is consensus that the fight against piracy has to continue and needs to be efficient. Neither Italy or India appear to show any appetite to disturb the current status-quo on matters of territorial jurisdiction and immunity from prosecution by taking concrete steps to move this case to a global venue for arbitration. The timing and fact that Italy and India have signed a prisoner exchange treaty may not be as innocent as it is made out to be. India will probably sentence the Italian Marines and immediately deport them to Italy under the terms of this treaty. The fact that both India and Italy are withholding key documentary evidence (military report, VDR recordings, satellite imagery, AIS & radar trackings, ballistic report, work contracts of the Italian Marines, manual containing rules of engagement and chain of command, etc.,) from the public domain indicates that there is preference for a diplomatic solution to this incident over a judicial 'win'. At the other end of the administrative spectrum the lower levels of Government on both sides operate according to entirely different rules, and, within the trappings and the inherent requirements of democracy (ie: judicial process for criminals and justice for victims). It will be interesting to follow the developments on this case to see how all of this pans out.
Hi 87.64.20.5,
reviewing your points one by one
1) no, there is no state of war between India and Italy, so the IHL does not apply. I am not aware of somebody declaring that the marines were in a conflict zone, but even in that case the conflict would be towards pirates, not toward India. So, if you want to apply the war zone comparison (IMHO a stretch), the fishermen could be considered "collateral damage" or even "victims of friendly fire", which is unfortunate circumstance but not war crime. However, more importantly there is no applicable provision in the Germany Vs. Italy and Greece ICJ sentence, since it validated immunity (albeit in different circumstances) . Accordingly I insist this mention is immaterial to the Indian incident, since it has nothing to do with it.
2) I agree with your general rationale and the opportunity to "compact" this article, however I find some differences between the "Jurisdiction" and "Impact on Anti-Piracy measures" paragraphs, since the first is part of conflicting stances, relevant to marines' future and possibly to International Law evolution, while the second is a consequence of this fact beyond the local affair and at global level. As to the rest, I concur.
3)agreed
4)I concur with your analysis. I would add some other interests in the "game": for Indian (and in particular, Kerala) politicians, to show they protect poor fishermen against supposedly arrogant foreigners; for Indian Coast Guard, police, investigators, etc. to show they acted correctly (go figure what would happen if it was eventually proved that there actually were two distinct incidents, and maybe the culprit were on Olympic Flair or on one or two real pirate vessels); for Italian Navy, to protect their men at any cost [a usual behavior among military]; for Italian Government, to satisfy the Navy, and also to push Armed Military Guard aka Vessel Protection Detachments vs. private guards (hence the lobbying towards other governments and international organizations, that could bear the same interests), since it can be a source of earning for the state; for private security companies, of course the opposite applies.
89.97.208.106 (talk) 15:26, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
@89.97.208.106 Thanks for your interesting feed-back. We concur on almost everything ... OMG !!! :-)
(1) My proposal is to redact the phrase to "On 3 February 2012 International Court of Justice ruled that international humanitarian law prevails over claims of sovereign immunity" and set aside reference to the notion of jus cogens. If we see that no one else is objecting to this redaction in the next few days, I suggest that this revised version replace the present phrase.
(2) Despite my suggestion to regroup the 2 sections, I too was in doubt (essentially for the same reasons that you stated) and that is why I avoided regrouping these 2 sections without a discussion here on the talk page. Let the article stay with it's present structure. An open review on the question of optimizing the structure can come later. But, for the record, something needs to be done regarding the redundant info. This is WIP.
yes we agree on pretty much everything, except I have not been able to be clear enough about that ICJ sentence. There are two separate points:
1) in the ICJ case there was jus cogens (war crimes) and IHL (there was a fully and openly declared war,i.e. WWII, so it applies) while in this shooting affair there is no jus cogens (if the Italian really killed the Indians because they mistakenly believed they were pirates attacking them it could be manslaughter, excess in self-defence or something like that, not one of the heinous crimes like torture, extra-judicial executions, slavery, piracy, etc. that are jus cogens matter) and no applicability of IHL because there is no state of war between India and Italy. That is why I think that ICJ sentence does not apply to this shooting affair.
2) even if I was wrong on the previous point, and the ICJ sentence applies as a precedent here, well, the court did not rule that "international humanitarian law prevails over claims of sovereign immunity", but the exact opposite!.
In fact, please read again chapter A.La gravité des violations pages 34 to 37 of the same document you linked, I report here for your convenience [33], where the Italian-Greek stance as follows:
"81. Le premier volet est fondé sur l’idée que le droit international n’accorde pas l’immunité à
un Etat ayant commis des violations graves du droit des conflits armés (ou droit international
humanitaire, pour reprendre l’expression communément utilisée aujourd’hui, qui n’était toutefois
pas employée dans les années 1943-1945) ou, à tout le moins, restreint son droit à l’immunité."
Conclusion:
"91. La Cour conclut que, en l’état actuel du droit international coutumier, un Etat n’est pas
privé de l’immunité pour la seule raison qu’il est accusé de violations graves du droit international
des droits de l’homme ou du droit international des conflits armés."
Then, Chapter B. La relation entre le jus cogens et la règle de l’immunité de l’Etat:
"92. La Cour en vient maintenant au deuxième volet de l’argument de l’Italie, selon lequel les
règles violées par l’Allemagne entre 1943 et 1945 relèveraient du jus cogens. Cet aspect de la
défense italienne repose sur l’hypothèse qu’il existerait un conflit entre les règles de jus cogens qui
font partie du droit des conflits armés et la reconnaissance de l’immunité de l’Allemagne. Selon
l’Italie, les règles de jus cogens prévalent toujours sur toute règle contraire du droit international,
qu’elle figure dans un traité ou relève du droit international coutumier ; la règle en vertu de laquelle
un Etat jouit de l’immunité devant les juridictions d’un autre Etat n’ayant pas le statut de
jus cogens, elle devrait donc être écartée."
Conclusion:
"97. En conséquence, la Cour conclut que, même en admettant que les actions intentées
devant les juridictions italiennes mettaient en cause des violations de règles de jus cogens,
l’application du droit international coutumier relatif à l’immunité des Etats ne s’en trouvait pas
affectée."
Accordingly, if you really want to quote this sentence, you need to write that, at least in that case, ICJ ruled that international humanitarian law breaches DOES NOT VOID claims of sovereign immunity
@89.97.208.106 Thanks for the detailed reply. I must admit that reading the text in french is quicker/easier for me). In light of the points that you have highlighted quoting from within the court document, I comprehend why you objected to the inclusion of this phrase.
FYI, I am going to delete this phrase as you had suggested.
The Italian claims of immunity for their soldiers and on court jurisdiction has not received any validation from any international organization (UN and/or EU). Likewise, Indian and Italian claims on jurisdiction afforded by their respective national laws have not been commented upon. The furthest that the EU would venture is to offer help to both Italy and India in arriving at a political/diplomatic solution to this issue. If there exist any official statement from international bodies (UN, EU, ICJ, IMO, ICC, etc.,) on this matter which supports the claims of either Italy or India which I may have missed while scouring the internet, kindly post them to this talk page.
by 87.64.20.5, I eventually found a statement[34], albeit quite diplomatic and even "timid", by Ioannis Vrailas, Deputy Head of the European Union Delegation at UN, during an international conference about maritime piracy, supporting Italian position about jurisdiction:
The effectiveness of global counter-piracy efforts depended on full respect for applicable international law and the flag State jurisdiction in international waters, he said, highlighting concern for a specific case of disregard of basic international law principles concerning the status of military personnel in active duty as a vessel protection detachment in an official mission.
please notice that no mention had been done about the involved countries (India and Italy), both presesent at the conference, which indicates the will to use as much tactfulness as possible towards India. Please also notice the Italian representative, Cesare Maria Ragaglini, also spoke about the matter in a slightly boldest tone, yet without directly mentioning India too (a diplomatic courtesy):
said international efforts to protect sea lanes and to fight piracy could only be effective if all nations cooperated in good faith according to established rules of international customary law and United Nations conventions. Presently, two Italian marines were being detained in a Member State on charges of the murder of two fishermen while they were carrying out anti-piracy activities in their capacity as vessel protection detachments on an Italian oil tanker in international waters. Freedom of navigation would be a meaningless concept if the exclusive jurisdiction of the flag State in international waters was not guaranteed, he said, emphasizing that counter-piracy operations could not even exist if States did not respect the functional immunity of the vessel protection detachments. Any erosion of the sending State’s exclusive jurisdiction over servicemen on official duty would jeopardize the status of agents on international missions, he said, adding that the Security Council could expect no less from each of the Member States.
Mr. PURI ( India), speaking in his national capacity, said the issue raised earlier concerned two security personnel who had fired on two fisherman. The case was considered to be sub juris and was being dealt with in accordance with international law.
Indian representative had also spoken previously, and:
He endorsed the Deputy Secretary-General’s conclusions and called for a framework to govern the use of privately contracted armed security personnel on board vessels to ensure regulation and accountability.
please notice Mr. Puri mentioned privately contracted armed security personnel, not military detachments! ;-)
I propose to mention it (summarized, of course) on the article impacts on anti-piracy section.
89.97.208.106 (talk) 13:58, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Lots of countries have expressed opinions on anti-piracy measures, Best Management Practices and need for regulation.
Pakistan's views (strategically located close to shipping lanes to/from the Horn of Africa & right now dealing with severe lawlessness) makes interesting reading [35] UN document, "Pakistan, in principle, did not object to the presence of privately contracted armed security personnel aboard merchant ships, subject to prior intimation on a case-to-case basis. Ships must notify coastal States about the presence of privately contracted armed security personnel in advance and formulate and put in place standard operating procedures to ensure that their security, at sea and on land, was not compromised. More broadly, an acceptable regulatory framework should be developed.".
According to the Associated Press, [36] quoting various UN PermReps "U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told the council that no ship carrying armed guards has been successfully attacked by pirates. But posting armed guards on ships is controversial. Russian and Italian military crews assigned to merchant ships have fired on and killed fishermen off Somalia, mistaking them for pirates approaching to board." and "French Ambassador Gerard Araud stressed that private guards do not have the deterrent effect that government-posted marine and sailors and naval patrols have in warding off attacks. "
Elsewhere, there is an article [37]which says that the "Asian Shipowners’ Forum called for the establishment of a multinational anti-piracy military task force under the auspices of the UN that could be deployed, a sort of UN Peacekeeping Vessel Protection Detachment on board of merchant ships (para. 43). These developments are not ripe for further exploration in the Secretary General report, but they raise fascinating preliminary legal issues. For instance, on the jurisdiction of special criminal fora, rule of law enforcement and the immunity of peacekeepers in connection with the prevention and punishment of universal jurisdiction crimes, that are worth considering for discussion in the near future."
I'll take some time to read-up on this from multiple sources and then try to formulate a synthetic phrase which will give the gist of the current collective mind-set (and include all the required cites).
In the mean time do check out the following articles which make interesting reading [38][39] and the PCASP discussions in the following documents [40][41][42][43][44]87.64.19.84 (talk) 02:51, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
in general, I agree with your approach. I wonder whether it is the case to update also other wikipedia articles, like Piracy in Somalia with this material.
@89.97.208.106 How about imagining the content of this section about anti-piracy measures in such a manner that it takes a 'global approach' from a 'broad perspective' kind of approach since it impacts several current-affairs wiki articles which deal with inter-related/joint-operation matters like anti-piracy, anti-terrorism (control of arms smuggling), anti-narcotics (drugs running), control of illegal human trafficking from war-torn zones, etc., ? The more I read about anti-piracy in UN and IMO documents, the more I also see these topics being addressed at the same time.
I don't want to take-on more than I can chew. So, the changes will come in incremental stages.
@87.64.19.84 despite you and 89.97.208.106 having posted a lot of interesting links here on the talk page,I see none has been used for the Article so far. Accordingly, I am going to try and make some addition based on such material. 93.144.65.51 (talk) 11:44, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Anti-Piracy
@ editors who added additional 'anti-piracy' content to the main-page of this article
The EU high-rep and Italian PM have made it clear that there are issues that have to be dealt with regard to the rules of engagement and the modus-operandi of VPDs and PCASP. It is best to leave their concise statements in this section as the statements highlight the broader picture (ie: that there is an issue that the IMO and the UN should deal with and also that India & Italy should resolve this issue keeping in mind the fight against piracy).
Additional anti-piracy comments and opinions can either be discussed here on the talk page and/or be included on other Wiki pages that deal with ANTI-PIRACY or SOMALI PIRACY in Wikipedia.
Here we are only interested in statements by 'top-level' officials (UN chief Ban Ki Moon, EU High-Rep, Italian PM, etc.,) who make a pointed reference to this incident.
The content that was submitted has been left there-in 'as is'. But, please note that an effort is ongoing to synthesize the info already contained on the main page. So, no point adding yet more info whose ideas/opinions whose thought-processes are not already contained in the main article.Kindly help optimize this article and cut-out all the unnecessary "he/she said" and the controversies/allegations. So, please add only new information that complements the info already on the main page by first submitting the info here on the TALK page for discussion before directly modifying the main article.
91.182.106.54 (talk) 20:07, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
@91.182.106.54
well, don't you think that official statements in front of UNSC deserve mention? BTW they add new contents, such as 1) EU taking sides 2) US and French Ambassadors supporting VPD as most effective form of protection, which counter the idea that private guards (or even no guards at all) are better in order to avoid incidents like this one, which AFAIUI is a big part of this section. As to the rest, I agree the article would benefit from being shortened, but I am afraid that would be possible only when the affair will be closed and matters cooled down. However that is not a good reason to withhold noticeable information. As to adding some related content to other Wiki article,that could be a good idea, I will have a look.
Finally, I had anticipated I was going to edit the article on this talk page, which BTW is not a mandatory Wikipedia policy -- standard procedure is that one just edits the articles as (s)he thinks to be useful, and other ones revert/correct it if they want. Talk page is to solve differences and avoid edit wars here, I saw no need since I just put on the main article some (summarized) material I found on this talk page, posted by 87.64.19.84 and 89.97.208.106, and t owhich nobody objected. 93.144.65.51 (talk) 21:05, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
@93.144.65.51
In reply to your questions : (1) The anti-piracy section mentions the EU High Rep's policy statement, Italian PM's speech at the UNSC, etc., which directly refer to this incident. So, yes indeed they are relevant. But I don't think that citations with opinions of lawyers and experts should make it this sub-section within the main article. Because, no one wants to see a situation where there are a huge amount of inclusions (within this sub-section) that cite every single statement made by 'experts' of all breeds on the topic of anti-piracy. Else, we'll be talking more about anti-piracy than the incident. It would suffice to put the key policy statements. Else, this article is going to get out-of-control. As someone correctly pointed out, the main article's goal is not to give a running commentary on this incident. The goal is to summarize the facts and issues surrounding this incident. (2) The opinions of the US and French UN Perm Reps with reference to VPDs are interesting. But, the statements were not made with pointed reference to this case (even if they may be interpreted as being made with diplomatic tact so as not to name any specific country). Therefore, these comments can/should go elsewhere within Wiki dealing with issues like 'piracy in Indian Ocean' or Somalia Pirates', etc., We can always internally link this wikipedia page to the relevant wiki page.
This article was being modified on a daily basis with biased editing.
Many contributors have helped in a VERY positive manner by 'stabilizing' the situation and at present we have a NICELY WORKING consensus that the main article will be edited directly only if there are new developments from the judicial/investigative side and/or important policy statements made by heads of State. In-fact, there have even been discussions on text content that has been reformulated/included/deleted gaining upon the experience and knowledge of contributors. This approach appears to be acceptable to the majority of wiki contributors since it is in the best interest of the article AND PROTECTS this article from unnecessary and unwanted 'wiki wars' due to content bias.
Glad to hear that you are thinking of contributing to other articles that speak of piracy elsewhere on Wiki.
1) the US and French ambassadors statements are relevant insomuch someone used this incident as a pretext to bash any armed guard on vessels for anti-piracy. Others claimed that private guards would have behaved more professionally than military ones. A/m statements specifically counter that, and are from countries that are both influent and non involved with this mess.2) I already edited piracy in Somalia wiki arrticle 3) I more or less agree with your remaining points. Italian news reports Minister terzi and/or high ranking military officers claiming they expect ISS sentence within next 17 Dec, citing undisclosed Indian official sources[45][46]. Let's see. 93.144.65.51 (talk) 06:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
ISS? I think you mean ISC, Indian Supreme Court. I read it too, BTW 213.203.165.253 (talk) 08:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I too saw/read the Italian Foreign Minister [47] and Defense Minister [48] interviews. The FM does seem to be certain about getting a SC ruling before december 17th. Wow, we'll have something to read over Christmas holidays ;) 91.182.106.54 (talk) 18:10, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
According to latest news, Italian authorities are again making pressure via diplomatic channel to hasten ISC decision [49]89.97.208.106 (talk) 12:32, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
"India said it will take at least another three months for its Supreme Court to rule on the fate of two Italian anti-pirate marines being tried in the nation for allegedly killing two local fishermen, according to a statement released on Friday (14/Dec/2012) by Premier Minister Mario Monti's offices"[50]91.182.106.142 (talk) 01:31, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
@91.182.106.142 I see you added a line about that. on mini summary you wrote Italy urges India court to rule on marines' case (14 Dec 2012) = Inserted text and URL citations whilst in the actual article, beside readjusting the paragraphs (which is OK) you just wrote On 14 December 2012, the Italian foreign ministry summoned the Indian Ambassador to express the Italian Government's "strong disappointment and profound bitterness" over the ongoing diplomatic crisis. . I would have stressed that bitterness and disappointment came after ISC postponing its judgement for three more months for the nth time. 2.40.114.54 (talk) 08:35, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
@2.40.114.54 I agree with your comment : Indeed, the Italian statement was released to say that they are not happy with the delay at the ISC. I have updated the phrase accordingly. BTW, I've also included a cite by the Italian Def Min because I think that he is a cabinet-level minister who is speaking while on an official visit to India [51] and in direct relation to this incident. So, his most prominent and pertinent POLITICAL statement merits to be relayed within this article. I have left out the part where he talks about having the marines back in Italy for the religious festival period for the time being BUT think that a phrase should be added very shortly. I have taken steps to incrementally update this webpage. I am just waiting for the Def Min to finish his visit to India and then we will have a full picture of ALL that he has said during the course of the visit. So, we can in one shot put in a phrase that gets/gives the political message of his visit. IF any objection on this text content edition process and also the reformulation of the phrase, please discuss here on the talk page. 91.182.106.142 (talk) 15:27, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
It isOK to me 2.40.114.54 (talk) 16:08, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
@91.182.108.60 I see you removed mention about Europena Union backing Italian stance at UN conference and wrote I checked the original UN debate document and found that no EU representative endorsed the Italian representative's opinions
IOANNIS VRAILAS, Deputy Head of the European Union Delegation, said that despite recent successes in the fight against piracy, there was no time for complacency given that key criminal networks remained active and current trends could easily be reversed. This was an opportunity to reinvigorate country-led counter-piracy efforts in a “twin approach” at sea and on land. He also drew attention to the Union’s EUCAP Nestor, a new regional maritime capacity-building mission, aimed at assisting the Somali and Indian Ocean States to govern their territorial waters and fight maritime crime.
He said that efforts should also continue to pursue piracy network leaders, financiers and instigators and to track and disrupt financial flows. The “risk/reward” ratio should be increased and the underlying business model should be broken. The Union was actively supporting Interpol in its work to improve the evidence base and capacities of countries in the region to investigate piracy. Union member States, supported by EUROPOL, were also active in investigations and prosecution efforts. The effectiveness of global counter-piracy efforts depended on full respect for applicable international law and the flag State jurisdiction in international waters, he said, highlighting concern for a specific case of disregard of basic international law principles concerning the status of military personnel in active duty as a vessel protection detachment in an official mission. He also emphasized that only the establishment of the rule of law and economic development would undermine the breeding ground for organized crime in Somalia.
No single action could solve piracy on its own, nor was there a “silver bullet”, he said, noting the need for an integrated approach. Such a collective initiative should include containment and deterrence by naval forces, measures to provide protection to merchant shipping, actions to end impunity, building regional capacities and finding solutions on land. The key issues were timing, sequencing and coordination.
(my bold). Is it not backing enough? 89.97.208.106 (talk) 16:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
@ 89.97.208.106 :
I had read (and have read yet again) the full-text of the article directly from the EU website [53] and specifically also the phrases that you marked out in block letters in you preceding comment.
(1) Mr. Ioannis Vrailas, Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Union to the United Nations, made his comments by taking care to CLEARLY STATE The Acceding country Croatia*, the candidate countries the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia*, Montenegro*, Iceland+ and Serbia*, the country of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidate Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia, align themselves with this statement.
(2) There is no reference linking the statement pronounced by the EU delegate which links this comment to specifically Italy, India or this incident involving Italian Marines.
(3) As you know there have been several cases (aka 'incidents') and any one of these incidents can have been the object of this comment by the EU delegate during the debate. To cite a few of the alleged or confirmed incidents, here are just a couple of examples : USNS Rappahannock (T-AO-204), several instances of Russian Navy blowing-up of pirate vessel(s) and/or pirates, the Indian navy shooting of Thai vessel, etc.,
(4) This point cannot conclusively be said to pointedly mention the Italian Marines aboard the Enrica Lexie off the coast of Kerala. The EU delegate has never mentioned anywhere nor has clarified later that the comments are/were made in context of the Enrica Lexie incident. Conclusions based on hypothetical assumptions and other forms of OR is not eligible for inclusion on Wikipedia.
Based an these above cited points, we can safely assume that the European Union is not willing to be dragged into taking sides on this diplomatic incident between Italy and India. 91.182.108.60 (talk) 18:54, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
@ 91.182.108.60 Americans, Russians and even Indians could have fired against innocents mistakenly thought to be pirates,and maybe it could be considered a disregard of international laws committed by military personnel against whatever country's citizens: but the EU envoy is not talking about that. Focus on the wording: he talks about "disregard of basic international law principles concerning the 'status' of military personnel ... <etc.>,i.e. the disregard of international law is connected to not having recognized a particular STATUS to some Military Personnel, i.e. not having recognized the functional immunity of VPD,as explained some sections above. Moreover, EU is likely to defend the interests of a member state (albeit with a lot of moderation,in order not to hamper the interests of other member states), not those of non members like USA, Russia or else. 2.40.114.54 (talk) 21:40, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Your comments are irrelevant ! READ AGAIN [54] : The statement delivered by Ioannis Vrailas does not have anything to link it to the Enrica Lexie incident !!! PERIOD !!!
Mr.Ioannis Vrailas's ultimate boss within the EU Foreign Affairs hierarchy the EU High Rep Ms.Catherine Ashton (also EU Vice-President) has already clearly spelt out the EU's official political policy regarding this incident (which is quoted within this article).
Sorry, but if no EU country endorsed that statement,it would not have been posted on EU official website. The statement
The Acceding country Croatia*, the candidate countries the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia*, Montenegro*, Iceland+ and Serbia*, the country of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidate Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia, align themselves with this statement.
..just means these countries add themselves to the EU ones --- again please notice the wording "align". Finally, there is no contraddiction between Ms Ashton and Mr. Vrailas (who, BTW is a Greek; could he not speak for his country?) statements,since you can "watch to the big picture" and wanting tofind a common understanding,while at the same time endorsing the functional immunity principle. 2.40.114.54 (talk) 21:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
@2.40.114.54 & 91.182.108.60 You will be surprised how many instances exist in history where a country's Ambassador to the UN or elsewhere has had to make a statement which did not reflect the official views of his own country. There are many reasons for this which I leave you to look-up on the internet under public diplomacy and international diplomacy. I am not starting a lesson on international public relations out here.
Assuming that the Ioannis Vrailas statement has the backing of the 27 EU member states, the fact of the matter is that there is no way to link it to the Enrica Lexie incident. Here on Wikipedia we are not mind readers with a crystal ball hi hi hi. We can assume all kinds of things on our personal blogs by doing mental gymnastics. However, here on Wikipedia only facts matter.
When we see an official EU political policy statement coming out of a 'principal' EU official like the EU High Rep, EU President, EC President, EU Perm Rep at the UN, etc., which EXPLICITLY puts forth a collective political stance of the 27 EU member-states on the Enrica Lexie incident, then by all means it can/should make it to the Wiki article. 91.182.108.60 (talk) 22:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Sorry again but you are wrong on this. The same EU website you found says that that is "Statement on behalf of the European Union". Those statements are always endorsed by all EU countries, and possibly by other countries that align themselves with EU. Here another example,on a totally different subject[55]. BTW, don't you think that if Ms. Ashton disagreed with her subordinate, she would have had not removed the statement from the website and rectified it officially? 2.40.114.54 (talk) 22:20, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
@2.40.114.54 : Ioannis Vrailas statement is somewhat in contradiction with the official EU policy as pronounced by the EU Perm Rep. Eu Perm Rep Catherine Ashton where-in she clearly "stressed that the legal basis for arming cargo vessels needed to be looked into". Moreover, the assumption that Ioannis Vrailas is mentioning the Enrica Lexie incident is open for debate. Where in the article does it say so ? I am wary of assumptions. My only question is as follows : How and where is the missing link (I am not asking for hypothetical assumptions) that clearly states that this statement specifically relates to the Enrica Lexie incident ? 91.182.108.60 (talk) 22:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Simply because it is the only case at present which is 1) related somewhat to piracy 2) allegedly presenting "disregard of basic international law principles concerning the 'status' of military personnel ... <etc.> 3) involving an EU county 2.40.114.54 (talk) 22:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
EU forces are deployed in the Persian Gulf and are dealing with not just Somali pirates but also a wide variety of other 'threats' (arms smuggling, drug running, embargo breaching, etc.,) in the context of terrorism and Iran, Syria, etc., So, the functional immunity, territorial jurisdiction, etc., can be also linked to any one of these contexts. Remember, EU soldiers and VPDs are deployed not just in the Indian Ocean. They are also in the Mediterranean Sea, Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Malacca Straits, etc., To throw the net even further and if we were to admit that assumptions are OK, then the issue of territorial jurisdiction and immunity can also be taken in the context of major/minor incidents in/around countries like Yemen, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, etc., over the past years with EU forces and/or VPDs. Assumptions lead to controversies. And, this is exactly what we are trying to avoid here. So, I will not be so quick to link this statement to the Enrica Lexie.91.182.108.60 (talk) 22:56, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
that international UNSC conference was related to piracy only, not to the other threats. However, since we cannot move on, and the dispute is just between the two of us, Iguess it is time to try the Wikipedia:Third opinion— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.40.114.54 (talk) 23:01, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
@89.97.208.106 There are several cases of "he said/she said" in the main article. However, in each of those instances the "he said/she said" were included because they were made by key Govt or International Organizations 'principals' or persons (cited by name and designation) who were either directly involved in the official investigations and/or the Court case. Also, there is/was no ambiguity about what topic (Enrica Lexie incident) they were speaking about.
It is clear from past history of this article that external POVs and ORs have lead to Wiki Edit Wars. From the time there has been the 'independently verifiable facts only' and 'traceable to directly involved Govt/investigation/Court official' code of conduct for content editions, there has not been a single instance of content vandalism. Therefore it appears most appropriate to continue to avoid seeking/attracting controversy because it wastes everyone's time and prevents us all from contributing relevant content to the main article. 91.182.108.60 (talk) 08:18, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Permission for Christmas in Italy
RfC : The Kerala Director General of Prosecutions T Asaf Ali has told the High Court that the Kerala State Government is opposed to allowing the two marines to leave India. [56][57] The Italian media has some additional info that I am unable to authenticate : several Italian media publications are quoting [58][59][60] that the Indian (Central) Government will not object to the Marines going to Italy for Christmas. Where can we view the full official text of the Indian Government statement ? The closest press statement that I have seen made on this topic by the Indian (Central) Government was a press briefing at the Indian MEA (Foreign Ministry) [61]
India on Tuesday said it has explained to Italy that the case of Italian marines, accused of killing two fishermen, was in the province of judiciary and they will have to wait for the judicial outcome. This was conveyed by the Indian ambassador, who was summoned in Rome by the Italian foreign ministry to press for a decision before Christmas. "Our ambassador was summoned to emphasise on the importance that Italy places on an early decision on this matter. We have explained to them that this is a matter which is in the province of our judiciary and we will have to wait for an outcome of judicial action on that. "As far as the petition that has been filed, it is their right to make that claim and whatever is the judicial decision in that we as executive will abide by that," official spokesperson in the ministry of external affairs said.
Could it be that this what the Italian media is quoting ? 91.182.108.60 (talk) 21:58, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
AFAIK Italian media are just basing their reports on their own interviews to Italian officials after the meeting with Indian legations, and Italian officials for sure reported the talks giving more evidence to aspects that are palatable for Italian audience; vice versa, Indian officials certainly summarized the talks by giving evidence to what is more appreciated by Indian voters. Real talks probably had been something in-between, and possibly including Machiavellian ideas that have been considered better to keep reserved by both parts. I highly doubt you will find a complete, official and mutually recognized report of the meeting, only the "he said/she said" you do not like so much, but that is how politics and diplomacy work. 89.97.208.106 (talk) 10:24, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
News is slowly filtering out from both sides with additional details about the 'deal'. I've seen reports quoting the Italian President, the Italian Ambassador in India and the Indian spokesperson at the MEA. [62][63][64]91.182.108.60 (talk) 03:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
Location of the shooting
There should be a section for explaining the location of the incident.
The controversies from both sides about where the ship and the trawlers were located.
In which zones, they were located. GPS locations once news is reported... HotWick (talk) 06:41, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
or similar image for locating the incident and explaining the location issues the italian and indian government have argument on. HotWick (talk) 06:58, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Editor 87.64.46.247 deleted a whole section because "Unverifyable information from media sources that has been attributed to no Italian or Indian official spokesperson".
Actually, this info has been reported many times on Italian media in Italian language, and attributed to Enrica Lexie master and/or the ship captain's log he wrote. Unfortunately, I could not find this specific information on English language news, so I cited a clear and detailed Italian language source and the English language articles I could find, which unfortunately are less specific, clear and detailed. As noticed elsewhere on this talk page there seems to be a nationalistic bias on this incident, which on turn produces a language bias on news sources, in the sense that Italian language news tend to show and elaborate facts supporting the Italian official stances, while English language news about this fact is in great part from Indian sources that tend to lend towards Indian official position
CANDIDATE FOR DELETION The controversial article by Italian journalist Fiorenza Sarzanini of the Corriere della Sera based on details obtained from undisclosed Italian Defense Ministry sources should be a candidate for deletion. 82.236.51.211 (talk) 11:20, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
OPPOSE: problem here is that pretty much everything is controversial, and there are very few neutral sources that can provide actual, non-disputed facts. Even the satellite position of the ship is practically impossible to ascertain, since some sources give two or three km from coast, some 20.5 miles, other 22 miles and other again 33. Please notice that not only Italian officials give no indications, but the same ca be said about the Indians. Accordingly, I think that as soon as official, proved facts are disclosed, the most neutral thing is to present the reasons of both sides of the controversy 89.97.208.106 (talk) 12:23, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
The article by Italian journalist Fiorenza Sarzanini contains nothing that can be independantly verified when it comes to the timing and location of the shooting. Do you agree to distances found in the Court documents (see links on this talk page) that have been submitted by Italian and Indian legal teams ? If yes, then that is all that matters. Everything else (be it from Italian or Indian or International origin articles without proof) is irrelevant because it is blatant POV and OR. 82.236.51.211 (talk) 12:59, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
well, no. IIUIC, you are making reference to this [65]. Please notice that it reads: Petitioners further contended that though in Ext.P2 it was stated that the incident took place 33 NM from the Coast of Kerala, in Ext.P3, it was alleged that it occurred 22.5 NM from the Kerala coast off Thrikunnam. Please notice that these diverging estimations come from Enrica Lexie and S.Anthony masters/crew respective reports/testimony, and can be interpreted either as one (or both) sources lying or erring, or the incident actually being two separate incidents erroneously connected. Furthermore, none of these positions is supported by actual proof (e.g. satellite tracking), and the Kerala judge, after having presented some calculations according to which real distance would have been 20.5 nautical miles, substantially dismiss the question ruling that (in his opinion) the exact location is immaterial to the case. Finally, since jurisdiction is questioned and still sub-judice, Kerala court ruling is not to be considered an impartial, authoritative and over-the-parts source, but just one out of many parts in this international mess. In conclusion, just to stick to wikipedia NPOV policy, I believe the most neutral thing to do is to report all these conflicting locations, writing that no final determination has been achieved so far. 89.97.208.106 (talk) 13:57, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Comparing the Court documents and the article by Italian journalist Fiorenza Sarzanini, you will agree that 33NM as stated by the Italian side DOES NOT EQUATE to 33 miles as quoted by Italian journalist Fiorenza Sarzanini ? So, why quote a poor quality article which contains factual errors and also makes allegations that cannot be verified ? Why not replace it with a more legitimate article from the BBC, VOA, REUTERS, AFP, etc., ? 82.236.51.211 (talk) 14:31, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
well, the Kerala judge concluded that those 33 miles were due to a miscalculation, however there are several other sources according to which the Italian (and the marines' lawyers team) position is still that the Enrica Lexie was approached by presumed pirates (who could have been the S.Anthony crew acting aggressively for whatever reason, or real pirates, having S.Anthony being attacked but another vessel in a separate incident). Here a few ones in English language only [66][67][68], many more in Italian language exist[69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76]. Moreover, Corriere della Sera is possibly the best reputed Italian newspaper, and the reason for it (as well as other newspaper) being forced to report "rumors" by undisclosed sources reportedly is that Italian Authorities prefer to avoid ful disclosure in order to avoid open diplomatic war with India, hoping in a "behind the curtain" eventual agreement. 89.97.208.106 (talk) 15:13, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
This is just poor journalisme. It is most ridiculous to suggest that Corriere della Sera (as well as other Italian newspapers) are being FORCED to report "rumors" from undisclosed sources by the Italian Authorities ! Another bureaucratic conspiracy by Italian government functionnaires against their own country ? Next, will you allegate that there is undisclosed proof of links with Communist China, Imperial Americans and Russian Red Army Brigade and also EU federalists and also the Vatican ? We are in decembre not 1st of april ! Descartesphilo (talk) 15:37, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
OK, let's say "forced" is a bad choice of words. What I meant is that Italian Authorities choose to keep pretty much everything reserved, their press releases are on the tone of "in order to have our marines back ASAP best course is to keep a low profile and discretely negotiate with New Delhi". So Italian journalists had to choose among 1)write nothing 2)write translations of Indian reports 3) try and find leaks given on condition of anonimity. Most chose the latter. 89.97.208.106 (talk) 15:54, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Anyway, I do not want and do not need to defend Sarzanini's article at any cost. If the general consensus here is to replace it with some other one, it's OK to me. Sarzanini article has some good aspect insomuch 1) it has been translated to English 2) it is a rather succinct summary of Italian position. However, please consider that the same information (the 33 miles, the allegation that there could have been two distinct incidents, etc.) can be found on many many other new sources (all the ones I linked some lines above and many more), so that the fact that Italian Sources dispute the Indian reconstruction of the incident on those and other points must appear somewhere and somehow in the article. Doing otherwise would be a travesty of the truth and bad service to wikipedia readers. 89.97.208.106 (talk) 16:37, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Neutral as to article per se (honestly I never liked that article so much, too imprecise and a bit confusing). However I concur with 89.97.208.106 that the 33 miles as well as other Italian-side reports, which contradict Indian reconstruction, are not even remotely an exclusive of Sarzanini's article, and must find space on the wiki article. LNCSRG (talk) 18:31, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Legal Jurisdiction
I didn't feel that the article was covering the dispute around legal jurisdiction very well, so have create a separate section in the hope of giving a more clearer picture of legal jurisdiction. Desione (talk) 06:29, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, thats right to add the legal Jurisdiction to the article, Legal Jurisdiction is too much highlighted in news HotWick (talk) 06:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. However, there seems to be some repetition of content. Chocolate Horlicks (talk) 04:23, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
I tried to make it proper how much I could. I would like to have more users to help out maintaining and referencing properly HotWick (talk) 17:13, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Seems like this is not an easy issue to try to clarify here. Perhaps simply stating that both India and Italy invoked provisions and limitations of UNCLOS to establish their jurisdiction would be sufficient? Desione (talk) 08:05, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
@HotWick: sure, I had put the first cut of the article together and would definitely like to help out more but I am travelling right now and hopefully can help more from next week onward. Chocolate Horlicks (talk) 04:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
RfC on "Territorial Jurisdiction"
Both India and Italy have claimed jurisdictional rights to deal with this incident[77][78][79] .
Italy stakes it's claim based on the fact that (1) this incident occurred within international waters (albeit the contiguous zone of India), (2) the Italian marines were discharging 'official duties' whilst on an anti-piracy 'mission' and also because (3) the events took place in part on an Italian flagged vessel private merchant vessel.
Indian stakes it's claim based on the fact that (A) the fatalities occurred on an Indian fishing skiff, (B) that the fishing vessel has navigational right-of-way, (C) that Indian Customs & Immigration laws were broken whilst the Enrica Lexie entered into Indian Contiguous Zone without permission to carry arms & ammunition on-board which are subject to declaration as per Indian laws and in accordance with UNCLOS Article 33 [80] (D) any anti-piracy mission occurring within the Contiguous Zone of a coastal state requires the coastal state to acknowledge functional immunity for armed-forces members (E) The Italian armed-guards (VPD) entered the Contiguous Zone of India without Indian immigration visas and therefore were in breach of Indian immigration and border control laws which extend into the contiguous zone of India according to the UNCLOS Article 33 (F) by opening lethal fire on a fishing skiff the Italian VPDs violated IMO recommendations on the graduated 'use of force' and requirement that the Captain of any private merchant vessel is ultimately responsible for all actions on-board the vessel as per International Maritime Laws (G) was in breach of International Maritime Laws by failing to archive the VDR of the vessel after the incident, did not immediately notify the anti-piracy center till after contacted by the Indian Coast Guard and did not cooperate to explain the chronological chain-of-events & chain-of-command for the two hours after the shooting occurred. (H) that India is not bound by any Status of Forces agreement with Italy on matters of functional immunity for armed-forces personnel from Italy while in Indian jurisdictional territory (land/sea/air).
Could we receive qualified comments from Wiki contributors on these two concurrent claims made by Italy and India ? Specifically can Italy can still claim court jurisdiction over the Enrica Lexie incident and sovereign functional immunity for it's armed-forces personnel although these VPDs along with their weapons and ammunition entered the Indian Contiguous Zone without any permission from India and in violation of Customs and Immigration laws and regulations of the coastal State which are recognized by the UNCLOS Article 33 ?
@ Onlyfactsnofiction. These are a big lot of difficult questions. I will try to reply to the best of my knowledge. Anyway, please do not presume the decision about jurisdiction is an easy one: if this were the case, why the Indian Supreme Court judges would be taking more and more time before the verdict? Internal and international political pressure aside, there are two main aspects to be considered: first, facts have not being cleared up to now, since, as it has been repeated several times in this talk pages, pretty much everything is disputed, and very few evidences had been disclosed to the public; however,it is possible that some undisclosed evidences are available to the court. Second, and most important,international law is not a complete, clear, integrated set of laws, like a civil or penal code of one whatever country, but a murky, heterogeneous lot of treaties, customs and not well integrated/integrable set of common practices and previous sentences precedents.
Now, I am going to try and reply to each of your individual points, following your numbering (i.e. numbers for Italian arguments and letters for Indian counterarguments)
1) again, we do not know where the incident happened (providing it was a single incident, and not two separated ones). However,supposing it happened outside territorial waters and inside contiguous zone, we need to observe that inside contiguous zone the costal state has the right to "
(a) prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea;
(b) punish infringement of the above laws and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea.",[81] while jurisdiction about every other fact rest on vessel flag jurisdiction.
Indian side would claim jurisdiction on the basis of (C) and (D), that are related to immigration and such. However C is debatable because one can make a case about nobody on Enrica Lexie wanting to immigrate (legally or illegally) into India, while it is evident it was a case of free passage and (D) can be easily countered on the basis that the use of arms was not programmed but due to contingency (a perceived, albeit not real, self defence case). Moreover, Piracy is one of those crimes against humanity for which universal jurisdiction exist and supersedes all other jurisdictions, local laws and rules. Finally,the Italian Marines were under Italian military regulations compliant to UN resolutions about piracy. Accordingly, I think that so far Italian position is stronger than Indian one.
2) in my opinion that of functional immunity (quoting relevant wikipedia article, "Any person who in performing an act of state commits a criminal offence is immune from prosecution") is the forte of Italian claims. This is a very ancient custom (and as we saw, so called customary law is a fundamental source of international law), never really discontinued except in case of dictators who committed genocide or similar, and of course this is not applicable. The Indians can say (H) they do not have a SOFA with Italy, which is true, but that does not void the general rule of functional immunity; on the contrary,the Indians would have needed a SOFA that explicitly denied the immunity in order to counter the general rule. It is worth to mention that the Kerala judge, in denying immunity noticed that there were no indication that the marò alleged acts were a direct consequence of orders by their military command, but they could likely be the consequence of their own judgment, or mandated by the Vessel Master. This was appropriate since functional immunity is ratione materiae, so that it would apply only in case of orders directly or indirectly coming from one country's government or military high command. However,I would bet that Rome already sent the Indian supreme court tons of documents proving the marò were operating strictly according to orders
3) this one, on the contrary, IMHO seems a weak argument for the Italians, since the UNCLOS is ambiguous on such cases (I guess that when that treaty was drafted nobody considered a case that was neither a collision nor an "incident of navigation" and that involved more than one vessel at time). The Indian interpretation and consequent claim of concurrent jurisdiction on the basis of UNCLOS seems to be reasonable. Please notice that the Italians are lobbying international fora to have the UNCLOS someway amended so that "the flag state" be clearly stated to be that of the vessel on which the alleged perpetrator(s)is/are located at the time an incident occurred (pls. refer to PM Monti speech at UNGA, Italian repr. speech at UNSC anti-piracy conference, etc.). This,of course, also cover point (A).
Now few points remain, since I talked about most of the Indian claims together with the corresponding Italian one.
(B) right of way for fishing vessels. That is part of UNCLOS, and has been quoted responding to speculations according to which the S.Andrew crew could have had approached the Enrica Lexie hastily and maybe angrily because the Lexie was or was going to damage their nets, disrupt schools of fish or similar. The fishermen protests could have been mistaken by Italians for pirates' aggression, hence the incident. It was objected that, even in such a case, the responsibility would have rested on the Italian side, since fishermen enjoys right of way according to the treaty, so that even larger vessels are required to steer out and stay at large from them. This aspect will or maybe will not show up if, when and where an actual trial on the incident is celebrated. On the other side, it has absolutely nothing to do with jurisdiction and conflict of law.
(F) finally, there is no doubt that, if (and only if) Italians acted as per Indian reconstruction, they acted hastily and violating important rules and such. Again,that is something for the actual trial, and it is not related in any way to jurisdiction. Furthermore, whether VPD need or not o be subordinated to the master is a complex issue, and Italians had their good reasons for having the marines directly reporting to Rome (a military detachment taking orders from a civilian master could imply legal problems). My impression is that Indians would have preferred VPD taking orders from the vessel master, or private guards altogether,just in order not to have to contend with functional immunity issues.
In conclusion, the international legal matter is much complex, and therefore it is not surprising that international law experts are waiting for the outcome of this
case hoping it will work as precedent and clarify private international law [82]LNCSRG (talk) 22:27, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
@LNCSRG Your point F says "Indians would have preferred VPD taking orders from the vessel master, or private guards altogether,just in order not to have to contend with functional immunity issues". For your info, IMO specifically states (in the aftermath of the Enrica Lexie incident) that the Master of the Vessel (Ship Captail) still remains the one and only person who is responsible for ALL actions happening onboard the ship and that insofar as teh IMO is concerned, the Captain/Master of the vessel is at the summit of the Chain of Command and answerable for all actions onboard and pertaining to the vessel.
You also say in reference to point C "one can make a case about nobody on Enrica Lexie wanting to immigrate (legally or illegally) into India". Well, the Indians don't claim that the Italian marines wanted to immigrate into India. Immigration issues dealt by all countries necessarily include the entry or residence or exit of aliens (aka foreigners). India claims that the Italian VPD team on an active combat-duty mission within Indian Contiguous Zone were operating without permission from India.
According to the Indian government perspective, India's immigration laws forbid (even if only in transit) the passage of armed-forces personnel on active duty onboard private merchant vessels because it is not deemed to be an 'innocent passage'. (cf: Italian VPDs were active on anti-piracy mission according to Italian government when the incident occured). Armed guards (including even VPD or PCASP) need permission and travel/transit authorisation documentation to transit through Indian CZ when on "active combat duty mission" onboard a non-Government owned aircraft or ship. THis is apparantly why India refuses to accept Italian claims for functional immunity for combat-actions done by these two VPDs.
Idem for customs laws which forbid (even if only in transit) the carrying of arms and ammunition onboard private merchant vessels. According to Indian governement, all ships (with exception provided only for non-Government naval military ships and Government-owned naval auxillary vessels of foreign countries) transitting through Indian CZ are subject to compliance with Indian laws pertaining to the import and possession of arms and ammunition.
The Enrica Lexie being a privately-owned ship has been flagged as a major reason why India insists on Indian court jurisdiction over this incident which occured within the Indian Contiguous Zone.
@LNCSRG Can you provide citation URLs on what/which UN Resolution you are exactly refering when you say "the Italian Marines were under Italian military regulations compliant to UN resolutions about piracy." ?Descartesphilo (talk) 16:20, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Interesting questions. 82.236.51.211, as to your first point, there is no doubt that military personnel poses new problems, and that is what (among other things) Ms. Ashton was meaning when saying " the legal basis for arming cargo vessels needed to be looked into". Moreover, IMO is a civilian organization, not a military one, with no remit as to military matters. Please notice that IMO statement are all referred to PCASP,i.e. private guards, who are not military. In fact VPD ar eodd beasts that create conflict of laws; on the other hand,they are extremely effective,even more than PCASP, as affirmed by French ambassador at last UNSC meeting about piracy. BTW this is one of the diatribes that have been highlighted by this incident and that I (as well as,I think,other editors) would like to see better explained on the "impact on anti-piracy measures" section of the article.
as for contiguous zone, of course Indians are mentioning their immigration law, since immigration is one of the few realms for which coastal state law prevails on maritime law (and therefore flag state law) within it. However this rationale is voided by the real concept of functional immunity, which would have been valid even in the case the marines had landed in India, invaded it for 1000 km and exterminated a village in the countryside, providing that was done following Italian government orders. In both case India would have had cause to ask reparation from Italy, accuse it in front of UNSC or even wage war; but not to try the individual marines. Quoting a statement by US Secretary of State Webster dating back to 1841 "[t]hat an individual, forming part of a public force, and acting under the authority of his government, is not to be held answerable as a private trespasser or malefactor, is a principle of public law sanctioned by the usages of all civilized nations, and which the Government of the United States has no inclination to dispute."
@Descartesphilo, in this official statement [83] (in English!) Italian FM states (sic) The Italian Parliament authorized the use of VPD military teams on Italian-flagged vessels as part of counter-piracy measures on the high seas in order to fulfil the corresponding obligation that falls upon every nation under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and relevant UN Security Council resolutions. Accordingly, relevant UNSC resolutions are these ones [84]. I would also cite thisotherUNSC document [85]“Commending the efforts of flag States for taking appropriate measures to permit vessels sailing under their flag transiting the High Risk Area to embark vessel protection detachments and privately contracted armed security personnel, and encouraging States to regulate such activities in accordance with applicable international law and permit charters to favour arrangements that make use of such measures"
@LNCSRG : (1) You have cited UN resolutiosn which deal with SOMALIA and nowhere within these resolutions do I see any mention of a mandate to for military action off the coast of India and especially within the Indian Contiguous Zone. So, where/what are the relevant UN resolutions that empower the Italian Government (or for that matter any other armed-forces soldiers) to allow VPDs to operate without Indian consent within the Indian Contiguous Zone. (2) There are serious doubts expressed on legal oriented blogs regarding the Italian interpretation on the concept of 'functional immunity' in this specific case. (3) in the 21st century it si quite ridiculous to think that an event like the ones you mentions ("in the case the marines had landed in India, invaded it for 1000 km and exterminated a village in the countryside, providing that was done following Italian government orders.") could have easily been swept under the rug ! How daft and unprofessional by the Italian 'high command' to authorize the use of lethal fire on unarmed fishermen (knowing very well that the Enrica Lexie was off the coast of Indian and not in the pirate infested waters off Somalia) !!! Anycase, the trial will bring out documentary evidence presented by pboth parties that will allow the common man get a better/fuller understanding of the picture and not have to rely on conspiracy theories built on undisclosed sources. 82.236.51.211 (talk) 17:34, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
(1) Those ones are the UNSC resolutions dealing with international piracy, and certainly most of them focus on Somalia, other ones on the Gulf of Guinea. Certainly none is focused to India. For sure there is no authorization for foreign power to operate inside the territory or the territorial waters of India or any other country,with the noticeable exception of Somalia,for which such a (temporary) authorization does exist. However the point is another: contiguous zone is NOT territorial waters, contiguous zone is international waters where in 95% of cases the law of the sea prevails, and only in some very specific cases (as to smuggling, illegal immigration, etc.) the coastal state law does -- please read the wikipedia article about territorial waters for a succinct explanation of these concepts. In case of conflict of laws, it is likely that, in front of an international court, it will be resolved in favour of the part who acted in order to prevent piracy (which is considered international crime and crime against humanity), while a coastal state ruling about immigration is a lesser ranking law. Anyway, even if the Italian side was found faulty of violating an Indian immigration law applicable to the contiguous zone (but who, exactly? The marines or the vessel master? Or the Italian government?)that would hardly be a case to void the functional immunity -- on the contrary, the functional immunity of marines would shield them also from Indian prosecution of this other infringement. LNCSRG (talk) 19:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
(2) Your doubts are legit, inasmuch as they are not only your doubts. It is not a trivial matter of my interpretation being non neutral -that is the standard interpretation of this term, please consider wikipedia definition of functional immunity is as follows: "Functional immunity arises from customary international law and treaty law and confers immunities on those performing acts of state (usually a foreign official). Any person who in performing an act of state commits a criminal offence is immune from prosecution. This is so even after the person ceases to perform acts of state. Thus it is a type of immunity limited in the acts to which it attaches (acts of state) but will only end if the state itself ceases to exist. This type of immunity is based on respect for sovereign equality and state dignity." point is that, at least considering cases applicable to soldiers, AFAIK there has been no other one applicable to military personnel in the 21st century,and only one in the 20th century, i.e the notorious Rainbow Warrior incident, which started as an international arbitrate, but ended with an out-of-court settlement (more or less) between France and New Zealand, so no sentence that could fix international law was pronounced. This happens because, for obvious reasons, it is very rare and unusual that military personnel of one country harm another country citizens out of an actual state of war. There has been ruling related to heads of states or similar involved into crimes against humanity, but that is hardly applicable here. That is why this incident attract so much interests by international law adepts and, by the way, I size this opportunity to state again that in my opinion such aspects would deserve more space on the article. LNCSRG (talk) 19:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
(3) (added later) Of course it could not be swept under the rug! My extreme example was just to show location (contiguous zone,territorial waters,even inland territory) counts very little as to functional immunity. Vice versa, it counts as to application of the law of the sea vs. coastal country law. As to the Italian high command I assume they never gave orders to shot fishermen. They gave orders to defend from pirates,and then a mistake occurred (or maybe there were two distinct incidents and the Italians are completely innocent). Of course I too long for a trial where evidences about satellite positioning, post-mortem examinations, ballistic test etc. are finally disclosed. As previously explained, I am also waiting for a verdict about jurisdiction and immunity. LNCSRG (talk) 21:25, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Neutrality disputed: is this article too pro-Indian biased, too pro-Italian or neutral enough?
The discussion seems to suggest that the article neutrality problems have been fixed. Some of the discussion seemed to have gotten sidetracked and bordered on becoming a WP:forum -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 23:17, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
[RfC: Neutrality disputed: is this article too pro-Indian biased, too pro-Italian or Neutral enough?
Please refer to relevant comments on sections "date of the event","mixed source","Olympic Fair"(sic),"POV" and "Diplomatic fallout","Italian contributors editing Wiki article with spin"] RfC removed 93.144.90.126 (talk) 23:11, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Let the technical debates by Italian and Indian-based law professors and legal experts remain in the talk page UNTIL there is a universally accepted position that is put forth as a result of a decision/arbitration by an independent and globally recognized organization such as the IMO or the International Arbitration Tribunal. Else, we are going to have arguments and counter-arguments in the Wiki article that represent the Italian and Indian perspective and which will continue on with the passing of time each time an 'expert' or law-college professor makes an expose or lecture. THEREFORE, please leave the article alone TILL senior WIKI CONTRIBUTORS can decide on how to move forward. You can prepare and submit your content in the talk page for approval BEFORE inclusion in the main article. 87.64.53.178 (talk) 16:11, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
well, I am another Italian, and I susbtsantially agreed with other italian editors on this talk page, i.e. this article seemed too close to Indian government positions say, 1 month ago.
Now, after all the edits, I would say it is rather balanced between he two governments positions. 87.22.185.30 (talk) 17:30, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Glad to see that we agree that the current form of the article is perceived as being more-or-less balanced. I fully support any effort to give readers a factual and unbiased view on this topic. Therefore, I suggest that we take inspiration from the legal documents including sworn statements given under oath that the Italian and Indian authorities have submitted to the Kerala High Court and also the Indian Supreme Court. I've seen that the full text of various court documents have already been released into the public domain and are now freely available on the internet. We can therefore cross-verify the facts from fiction by verifying the hype/fiction/allegations that has been picked-up by the media selectively for their 'home audiences'.87.64.27.178 (talk) 00:58, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
29TH DAY OF MARCH 2012, JUSTICE P.S.GOPINATH KERALA HIGH COURT JUDGMENT WP(C) No.6083 OF 2012(I) [86]
3rd day of April 2012, Manjula Chellur, Ag. C.J. & V. Chitambaresh, JJ. KERALA HIGH COURT JUDGMENT W.A. No. 678 & 679 of 2012 Dated - Doramma Vs. M.T. Enrica Lexie, (2) KLJ 398 : 2012 (2) KHC 265 [87]
2nd day of May 2012, Justice R.M. LODHA M.T. Civil Appeal No. 4167 of 2012 arising out of S.L.P. (Civil) No. 11942 of 2012 Enrica Lexie & ANR. Vs. Doramma & Ors. [88][89]
29TH DAY OF MAY 2012 JUSTICE. P.S.GOPINATHAN, KERALA HIGH COURT JUDGMENT WP(C).No. 4542 of 2012 (P) - Massimilano Latorre Vs. Union of India (2012) 252 KLR 794 [90]
Dear 87.64.27.178, I found the documents you mention on the web and added the respective links for everybody's convenience after each item in your list here above 87.22.185.30 (talk) 16:34, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Please contribute links to (authenticated & full text) court documents about the investigation process that is under-way in Italy. Court rulings and lists of items submitted before the judges and are normally released in both India and Italy for public access. We do know that Italian investigators (both civil & military) are investigating this case. What is the progress and status of that process ? Has anyone considered filing a public-interest "RTI" in India to get full-access to the status of the Indian investigation ? Natobxl (talk) 18:47, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
@ Natobxl
as I wrote on the previous section, the Italian trial is underway only in the sense that a file has been opened. No further news from last spring, after that witnesses in Italy haves been interrogated, and their testimony has been put under secret.
This is however not so unusual for Italian judiciary. On a side note, while on this case a lot of fuss from Italian part was about Indian courts slowness, Italian tribunals can actually be even slower.87.22.185.30 (talk) 16:44, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
The manner in which the Italian authorities have pulled the cloak of secrecy over this incident is certain to raise eyebrows. It appears that there are way too many allegations and conspiracy theories that are not backed-up with supporting documentary evidence. One of the best websites for these conspiracy theories is the one maintained by Luigi Di Stefano [91] which is pure fantasy. I recommend everyone with legal back-ground to take a look and have a good laugh ! The website even contains 'look-alike' documents that are presented as originals !! No where does the website mention where and how they got hold of scanned copies (which by the way are unauthenticated) of the ballistic report. Also, I wonder why only a redacted portion of these scans are online. Why is it not possible to post the full report for the general public to see/read ?
The Italian media has widely quoted and cited Luigi Di Stefano and refers him as a technical expert, engineer and legal expert. [92]. WHO exactly is this person ? Are we talking of the same Luigi Di Stefano who is the author of a controversial conspiracy book "Il buco. Scenari di guerra nel cielo di Ustica" on the Itavia air-crash disaster ? WHY is it not possible to see his biography and resume to authenticate if he is really a law expert ? I don't see any publications which he has made in recognized legal journals. IF he is really a legal expert, which law school or law university did he attend ? A quick google translation of the book-description by Luigi Di Stefano states the following : "On 30 April 2004, the Court of Assizes in Rome has closed the story concerning the Ustica massacre with the acquittal for prescription of the main defendants, without responding to any of the open questions from the various investigations. Remain without solution so the mysteries related to the mechanics of the disaster, as regards the responsibility. And yet the hole, on the contrary, the input and output ports of the two missiles that have hit the Dc9 are there, visible to the eyes of all. This is therefore the focus of the inquiry conducted by the author, an expert in one of civil parties in the process. Without unfortunately offer full light on what happened, the volume explains the dynamics of the disaster, even if the dark remains on those who launch those two missiles and especially why".
Is this the kind of controversy and conspiracy theories author that the Italian press are relying on as their and 'expert' and principle source of information and technico-legal expertise for their news and current-affairs editorials and articles ? [93] Pathetic and most unfortunate !!! [94][95]87.64.20.5 (talk) 12:20, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
IMHO you are quite unfair towards poor di Stefano. Firstly, he did quite a good job on the Ustica case, and the final tribunal sentence endorsed his expertise about the plane being hit by a missile. it is true that no culprit was found, but just because Italian Air Force officers opposed military secret and did not answered prosecutors questions -- please refer to relevant wikipedia article. Second, as to the Shooting incident di Stefano was not officially sanctioned by Italian authorities or by defendants, but he did his researches sua sponte. Accordingly, since as we saw, neither Italian nor Indian authorities had diffused official evidences/materials, he tried to find by himself the best evidences he could, and resorted to photographs found on the web un news sites and to still frames from TV News -- I too watched that TG1 reportage on Italian TV. 2.40.126.48 (talk) 22:46, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
@2.40.126.48 The point that I am trying to make is that the Italian media should would do well to check how the validity, authenticity and verifiability of data that they collect for their news and current affairs articles and editorials. It appears that an important looking website with complicated diagrams, some mathematical formula, a few CAD diagrams, and a whole lot of text wrapped in technical jargon is all that it takes to convince Italian media to pick-up and print Luigi Di Stefano's so-called investigations and conspiracy theories [96] hosted on SEENINSIDE.NET as 'facts' ! 87.64.20.5 (talk) 22:46, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Third-party opinion about EU delegate statement at UNSC being in support of Italy
Hi, I'm a Third Opinion Wikipedian and saw a request for a third opinion listed at the Third Opinion project page. I don't know about other volunteers at 3O, but I'm not willing to read through the foregoing wall of text to figure out what the dispute is about and what the opposing positions are here. If you really want a 3O, let me suggest that, just below, each of you make a very brief statement of what's involved in the dispute and what your position on it is. I'd recommend that none of your responses be very much longer than what I've written here. You may still not get a response — we are all volunteers, after all, but that will certainly increase your chances. To other 3O volunteers: I've not "taken" this request and may not do so. Please feel free to give a 3O if you care to do so. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:47, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
2.40.114.54 (aka LNCSRG) says that the dispute is about:
Ioannis Vrailas, Deputy Head of the European Union Delegation at UN, during an UNSC international conference about maritime piracy, was reported to have stated that The effectiveness of global counter-piracy efforts depended on full respect for applicable international law and the flag State jurisdiction in international waters highlighting concern for a specific case of disregard of basic international law principles concerning the status of military personnel in active duty as a vessel protection detachment in an official mission.[97] are these statements related to this incident? If so, meaning what? 2.40.81.192 (talk) 19:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
2.40.114.54 (aka LNCSRG) position on the dispute:
this statement, albeit expressed in contrieved and diplomatic language, means that the European Union supports Italian position according to which international law requires that Italian marines are to be tried in Italy and not in India, because of functional immunity. Moreover, this fact is important enough to deserve mention on the article. 2.40.81.192 (talk) 19:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Addition: with reference to point (2) of editor 91.182.108.60 (aka Onlyfactsnofiction) here below, I ackowledge that other similar incidents happened, but in none of those other cases military personnel had been captured by some other country police to be tried, so there could be no doubt Mr.Vrailas was talking about this specific incident,given thespecific mention of STATUS of military personnel in action duty as VPD in an official counter-piracy mission, which relates to Functional immunity. Moreover, no EU member country was involved in any of those other incidents.2.40.81.192 (talk) 06:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC) add,except Dutch,I concede, however in this case the a/m reference to STATUS of military people is not applicable as explained above, etc etc. LNCSRG (talk) 17:37, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
further addition: Editor Onlyfactsnofiction on points (1) and (5) here below equates what he/she calls my "hypothetical assumptions" to Original Research. I avoid the need to debate whether his/her rationale is correct or not, and just reply we can remove the problem by referring to news sources like this one [98] where the same assumption is given for granted.Furthermore, in this other news report [99] the same Italian Foreign Minister Terzi associates this incident with Mr.Vrailas speech. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LNCSRG (talk • contribs) 21:32, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
P.S.: I am the same guy as 2.40.114.54. Non-static IP 2.40.81.192 (talk) 19:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Onlyfactsnofiction says that the dispute is about: User 2.40.114.54 would like to modify the main article with OR POV by introducing the notion along the lines of 'European Union has endorsed the Italy position in this dispute' based on a statement pronounced by the EU delegate Ioannis Vrailas at the UN anti-piracy debate in Nov 2012. I object to extrapolating this statement to hypothetically conclude that it is an indication of support to Italy.
Prior to expressing an opinion, I suggest to Third-Opinion givers that they qualify (explain) their answer/opinion after researching not just the Ioannis Vrailas statement at the UN thoroughly but also the EU's official stance on this diplomatic incident vis-à-vis both Italy and India.
(1) What within the Ioannis Vrailas statement links it unequivocally to the Enrica Lexie incident ? User 2.40.114.54's assumption that Ioannis Vrailas is mentioning the Enrica Lexie incident is open for debate. My objection to introducing POV and OR interpretations to the main article stems from the fact that every single EU policy-maker (the EU President, EU High Rep, EC President) has steered clear of getting involved by taking sides with either Italy or India. The EU's stance has been neutral. The EU has repeatedly stated, through the office of it's chief diplomat (Catherine Ashton) who in her official capacity as the EU High Representative & also EU Vice-President, that it is willing to facilitate a diplomatic solution between Indian and Italy while at the same time underlining that there are legal (jurisdictional) issues surrounding the presence of armed guards on-board private merchant vessels.
(2) User "LNCSRG" (aka 2.40.114.54 and 2.40.81.192) is unwilling to recognize that there have been several anti-piracy related cases (aka 'incidents') involving armed guards/soldiers on-board private ships (including soldiers from EU countries) [100][101][102][103][104][105] and therefore any one of these incidents can have been the object of this comment by the EU delegate during the debate. To cite a few of the alleged or confirmed incidents involving armed guards VPDs/PCASPs in and around the Indian Ocean region, here are just a couple of examples : USNS Rappahannock (T-AO-204), several instances of Russian Navy VPDs opening fire on skiffs, etc., There have also been media reports of 'shoot & scoot' incidents where-in VPDs have opened deadly fire and not reported the incident to avoid legal repercussions.
(2-bis) Here is a video of a DUTCH VPD team stationed onboard a DUTCH-flagged private vessel MV Flintstone opening fire against pirates 93NM north east of the island of Socotra. At the time of inclusion of this comment, I checked, the Dutch (Netherlands) were a EU member-state. [106][107][108] This incident and the other fore-mentioned incidents where VPD teams took law into it's own hands by opening deadly fire on pirates has raised eyebrows among insurers, legislators and lawyers as to the legalities, statutes, regulation, jurisdiction, status, etc.,
(3) At present the main article is being vetted for accuracy and contains only statements made by policy-making Govt or International Organizations 'principals' or spokespersons (cited by name and designation) and officials who were either directly involved in the official investigations and/or the Court case. Quoted/cited statements which have no ambiguity about what topic (Enrica Lexie incident) they were speaking about have stayed on the main page.
(4) It is clear from past history of this article that external POVs and ORs have lead to Wiki Edit Wars (not to mention the severe Italian bias introduced into the main article by selectively using Italian media articles which have cited original research lifted from the personal blog of an author of conspiracy theories). From the time that there has been a tacit consensus on the 'independently verifiable facts only' and 'traceable to directly involved Govt/investigation/Court official' code of conduct for content edition, there has not been a single instance of content vandalism. Therefore it appears most appropriate to continue to avoid seeking/attracting controversy because it wastes everyone's time and prevents us all from contributing relevant content to the main article.
(5) Inclusion of OR and POV theories based on hypothetical assumptions (especially in international diplomatic disputes) is nothing short of Original Research and is therefore not eligible for inclusion on Wikipedia. Toying with the grey-area when it comes to facts only attracts unnecessary POV & OR wars and can be a precedent for further inclusions of 'oblique' OR theories.
(6) I reiterate that there is no DIRECT reference linking the Ioannis Vrailas statement specifically to either Italy, India or this incident involving Italian Marines on-board the Enrica Lexie, etc.,
I'm another user here wanting to give a third opinion, but I can't because the above is very confusing. Can you please get user accounts so that we're not talking to changing IP addresses, and very concisely (with a WP:DIFF showing the context) say which text is contested and why? Sandstein 08:04, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
@ Sandstein: OK, now we both have accounts (I obviously am the same person as 2.40.114.54 and 2.40.81.192). Well, a main point of the international incident this wiki article is about is that the two involved countries, India and Italy, affirm different interpretation of international law, and each of them claims jurisdiction to try the Italian marines that allegedly shot two Indian fishermen dead. Editor Onlyfactsnofiction affirms that no third country or international organization had sided so far with either Italy or India. However, at a/m United Nation Security Council conference on Piracy, where Italian and Indian representatives reasserted their respective positions, the European Union representative read this statement. In particular, the sentences "The effectiveness of the international efforts to counter piracy depends also on the full respect of the applicable international law and the flag state jurisdiction in international waters. We remain deeply concerned by a specific case of disregard of basic international law principles concerning the status of military personnel in action duty as VPD in an official counter-piracy mission, and the flag State jurisdiction in international waters." are a clear reference to this case (even though no country and no detail is given for diplomacy), since no other incident involving piracy and "the status of military personnel in action duty as VPD in an official counter-piracy mission, and the flag State jurisdiction in international waters" does exist at present. Moreover, this statement supports the Italian stance, according to which Italy has exclusive jurisdiction because the fact happened in international waters, and military personnel on mission is usually considered to enjoy functional immunity in international law. LNCSRG (talk) 21:32, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
Moreover, as to WP:DIFF, here this speach was cited for the first time by yours truly, and the text was This rationale had been reasserted in front of UN Security Council by both Italian and European Union representatives debating about piracy at 6865th SC Meeting;[1] Indian representative replied the case was being dealt with in accordance with international law.[1]
Here, several edits afterwards, Editor Onlyfactsnofiction removed the mention of the EU representative, leaving only the Italian one on the sentence.
Finally, I size the opportunity to thank TransporterMan and Sandstein for their respective contributions. LNCSRG (talk) 22:02, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
This article was listed on the Third Opinion page and here are my two euro-cents on this matter (after reading through this entire talk page and also having done some background research on the editorial reporting from both the Italian, Indian and international press).
The EU 'support' to Italy may (at the very best) be seen as extremely distant. Jumping to conclusions as suggested by "LNCSRG" is neither wise nor desirable. There are too many IFs and BUTs in the hypothesis put forth by "LNCSRG". Personally, I would side with the views of "Onlyfactsnofiction" and stick to clear-cut political statements by policy-makers and not hedge my bets some vague and oblique diplomatic statement from a mouth-piece voiced during a debate all the more since it is noteworthy to that stake-holders of international organisations and agencies have clearly steered away from getting drawn into taking sides. Similarly, no policy maker from any third-party country seems to inclined to intervene by taking sides. The EU and the UN has consistently called for a negotiated diplomatic solution to this incident.
To conclude, I am favourable to not including any reference about EU support for Italy.
Some other thoughts : Contributor "Onlyfactsnofiction" does have a valid point in trying to shield this article from unnecessary wiki edit wars. I echo comments made by "Onlyfactsnofiction" by confirming that the edit history does indeed show that too many Italian origin IPs have tweaked the article to play along with the Italian narrative. Whilst the media in both countries tend to play to their respective audiences, I get a feeling that the Italian media has gone on a tangent with wild theories about an international conspiracy of favour shown towards India for commercial reasons and also lopsided reporting based on information sourced from undisclosed sources. By contrast, Indian editorials generally tend to cite sources involved directly with the investigation and/or court case by name and designation and also source their content directly from court documents. The territorial jurisdictional and functional immunity issues are not as clear-cut in Italy's favour as the Italians make it out to be. There is a genuine reason to ask that the Italian Government to tone down it's rhetoric and win it's argument in law-courts be it in India or The Hague.
82.236.51.211 (talk) 20:41, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
The Italian government often makes reference about Italian laws in conformity of anti-piracy UN Resolutions. Can links to these Italian laws (even if in Italian language only) and the correcponding UN resolutions be provided here for reference purposes ? Descartesphilo (talk) 19:53, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Certainly. As to Italian law creating the Nuclei Militari di Protezione (basically Italian for VPD) you can refer to relative Italian Wikipedia article: [109] and to the Marina Militare (Italian Navy) website [110]. As to the rest, please refer to my reply to your other question on the Legal Jurisdiction section of this same talk page LNCSRG (talk) 22:33, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't read/understand Italian. Is there any place where an Italian version/translation of these documents be read in english or french language ? Onlyfactsnofiction (talk) 17:05, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I cannot find any. Maybe you could contact the Italian Wiki embassy to other languages wikipedias: [111]LNCSRG (talk) 18:38, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Interception by Indian Coast Guard and Indian Navy occurred within Indian Waters ?
According to court evidence provided by Indian government authorities, the Enrica Lexie has sailed-on heading towards Egypt for 2 hours without reporting the incident and to a distance of approximately 39NM after the firing incident. Could this not have brought the Enrica Lexie within Indian territorial waters because of the presence of lots of Indian islands (Andrott, Kalpeni, etc.,) which are part of the Laccadive and Minicoy archipelago and which lie directly in the path of it's heading ? Some of these sand-banks, shoals and islands are visible on Google Maps but a whole lot of others especially in the case of shoals and sand-banks are present only on maritime charts.
This could have been the reason why the ship captain of the Enrica Lexie on purpose did not archive the VDR of the Enrica Lexie ! It is better not to get caught red-handed. Not archiving VDR is a lesser offense when compared to having to face the judiciairy of a foreign land. By allowing the VDR to over-write itself, the Italian court case is strengthened because the actual happenings onboard the ship are unclear. Indian civil and military maritime surveillance satellites and radars can/could/would/should have tracked the course of the Enrica Lexie so there is a way to uncover some of the truth provided the Indian government is willing to lift secrecy (still in a Cold War secrecy mentality from what I read on international forums) and disclose it's maritime surveillance assets and capabilities.
By the way, Indian court documents released into the public domain give an insight into of how the interception of the Enrica Lexie (by Indian Coast Guard and Indian Navy) took place and also how the crew and marine VPD resisted for two days the boarding, search, interrogation and arrest of marines after the ship arrived at the port of Kochi. My understanding is that Indian security-forces and judicial authorities boarded the Enrica Lexie only after the permission of the Italians was given throught diplomatic channels.
82.236.51.211 (talk) 10:28, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Of course that is a possibility, among many. Of course that is just speculation and also the reverse is possible, e.g. the Indians not willing to reveal they intercepted the Lexie outside their jurisdiction; or on the contrary, that they used a cheap trick to have the vessel willingly coming to Kochi port and maybe ICG interception happened just few miles from it. As to the not archived VDR, I'd bet it was just out of trivial negligence from the master side. But again this is just a conjecture. As for Indian ability to track vessels in the vicinity of their coasts it would be nothing special; on the contrary, it would be astonishing if they could not. As to reasons for all this secrecy (from both sides), we are again in the realm of speculation. I am afraid the only thing we can do is to wait and see. And please remember Futuretrillionaire's mention of WP:forum wikipedia policy LNCSRG (talk) 11:43, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I do remember Futuretrillionaire's mention of WP:forum wikipedia policy of this page not becomeing a forum. However, I am not the one who constantly takes defense of wild speculative hypothesis & conspiracy theories based on undisclosed sources. Ahem ahem "Polemiche su responsabilità le lascio ad altri" as fore-mentioned elsewhere in this page ;) 82.236.51.211 (talk) 11:56, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I got it, however there is a significant difference between making your own assertions without references and quoting somebody, in particular somebody in an authoritative position, e.g a minister, asserting something without evidences, or a journalist who cannot disclose her/his sources. Wikipedia policies are that the latter kind facts are to be written, with their reasonably due weight, and taking care to present them to be somebody opinion/position, and not (necessarily) "the Truth".
Even when information is cited to reliable sources, you must present it with a neutral point of view (NPOV). All articles must adhere to NPOV, fairly representing all majority and significant-minority viewpoints published by reliable sources, in rough proportion to the prominence of each view. Tiny-minority views need not be included, except in articles devoted to them. Where there is disagreement between sources, use in-text attribution: "John Smith argues that X, while Paul Jones maintains that Y," followed by an inline citation.Sources themselves do not need to maintain a neutral point of view. Indeed, many reliable sources are not neutral. Our job as editors is simply to summarize what the reliable sources say.[112], my bold.
@82.236.51.211 & @LNCSRG Since both of you are not interested in contributions based on factual happenings but concentrating on speculative hypothesis, why don't you take your arguments elsewhere to a forum page as suggested by Futuretrillionaire and have your shouting match out there ? These sterile never-ending discussion are tiresome to read and only contributes in polarizing opinions in a negative manner. We need cooperation to move this article forward in an intelligent manner. I appeal for calm and hope that everyone will take a nice deep breath, have a drink or two and allow things to cool off. Onlyfactsnofiction (talk) 17:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Impact on anti-piracy measures -- comments on a very interesting article.
I just found on the web this very interesting article: [113].In particular, I find this passage enlightening:
Apart from the diplomatic drama, what makes this incident extremely important is the repercussions it may have on Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs). If these two marines are granted State immunity and let go, it could be an encouraging sign to other seagoing nations to support VPDs on their own flagged vessels. If State immunity is denied, and VPDs risk the same liabilities that exist with PMSCs, it could discourage states from continuing to provide VPDs. In the latter case, shipping companies would be left to decide whether to hire PMSCs and take on the liabilities that come with hiring companies in a loosely regulated industry. The stakes are very high as one report valued the PMSC industry for piracy alone at around $1 billion in 2011.
This, IMHO, is the main point of the "Impact on anti-piracy measures" article section, and I would like to report a summary of it there, together with the relevant citation.
Since somebody here insists that significant changes are to be discussed here on the talk page before posting, I will wait for possible objections till next weekend. LNCSRG (talk) 22:09, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
I agree with your reasoning and second your motion. 89.97.208.106 (talk) 09:58, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Enough mention of anti-piracy impact already available on the main page. Further inclusions will cause article to stray from the principle point and also open-up the main article for further inclusion of submission of opinions from all horizons which is not the primary objective for this article. No objection to inclusion of the parts of the article where facts are cited from Court document. Objection is only for POVs and OR at the end of the article which are up for inclusion into main page. In any case, these comments on anti-piracy IF they are to be inclused in Wikipedia, then they whould go to the relevant pages concerned with Anti-Piracy missions.
Controversies makes everyone waste time instead of concentrating on verified events and current facts. Kindly read that time and again appeals have been made to contributors to avoid conspiracy theories, undisclosed cites, non-verifiable information sources, etc., and also controversial POVs & ORs. 82.236.51.211 (talk) 10:44, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
@82.236.51.211, I beg to differ. My point is that the most valuable part of this article, from an encyclopedic point of view, is not that a couple of soldiers may or may not have killed a pair of fishermen they mistook for pirates. With all due respect to the victims, to the marines (who could be innocent, as far as we know) and their respective families, if that was the case, this incident would have been managed in the same way as the other similar incidents to which Onlyfactsnofiction made reference on this same talk page (Russians VPD killing two Somali fishermen, Americans killing a Yemeni, etc.): one or two lines on some wiki article related to piracy at most.
On the contrary, what makes this case "special" is that it started an international row with implications ranging from international relations to maritime law, from local Indian and Italian internal politics to economic interests.
Among these latter, I think that it would be interesting and useful for wikipedia readers to be informed about conflicting economical interests of governments (who have reason to support the deployment of VPDs coming from their respective armed forces) and private security companies, that would profit VPDs being discredited in favor of private guards (i.e. PMSCs).
Finally, while WK:OR policy prevent any editors from writing such reasoning on a wiki article, citing an expert doing so is acceptable.
add: 82.236.51.211 writes "Enough mention of anti-piracy impact already available on the main page.". However the article presently reads The episode sparked speculation about the pro and cons of anti-piracy measures such as the employment of Private Security Contractors and Armed Military Guards on-board commercial shipping vessels.. On the contrary, there is no mention about VPD vs. PMSCs dispute. 89.97.208.106 (talk) 13:23, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia readers have enough back-ground info about anti-piracy efforts and indirect impact at present. If they are interested, they can read the Somali anti-piracy page since there is a link to that page. IMHO the VPD versus PCASP debate can take place elsewhere. 82.236.51.211 (talk) 14:23, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
In principle yes, it could. But why not here, since this case provided fuel for this debate? and why not here and elsewhere too? At present I could not find any VPD versus PCASP mention on wikipedia. Can you? 89.97.208.106 (talk) 14:50, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
IF you want to have a VPD versus PCASP debate, here is not the appropriate page. Wiki pages directly dealing with Anti-piracy related operational and policy matters are the better place to have that debate. The VPD versus PCASP pros&cons discussions existed within the IMO prior to this incident and was being discussed in the anti-piracy context. Anti-piracy consequences are already adequately covered in this main page as it stand at present. 82.236.51.211 (talk) 20:28, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Of course I agree with 89.97.208.106, since I opened this section. Dear 82.236.51.211, I noticed you did not reply to his questions directly, so I will re-formulate them here below:
you continue to repeat this is not the place for the VPD vs. PMSCA debate, but why not? What harm could it do?
you say that other articles would be best suited. What articles exactly?
even if such other articles could be found, why not here and there too?
you say "The VPD versus PCASP pros&cons discussions existed within the IMO prior to this incident". Have you any evidence or indications of that?
Regards LNCSRG (talk) 21:46, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
No reply so far, so I post here my proposal for article edit. Where it is written:
The episode sparked speculation about the pro and cons of anti-piracy measures such as the employment of Private Security Contractors and Armed Military Guards on-board commercial shipping vessels.
I propose to add, at the end:
and whether the former are preferable or not. In the words of Roger L. Philips[114]" If these two marines are granted State immunity and let go, it could be an encouraging sign to other seagoing nations to support VPDs on their own flagged vessels. If State immunity is denied, and VPDs risk the same liabilities that exist with PMSCs, it could discourage states from continuing to provide VPDs. In the latter case, shipping companies would be left to decide whether to hire PMSCs and take on the liabilities that come with hiring companies in a loosely regulated industry. The stakes are very high as one report valued the PMSC industry for piracy alone at around $1 billion in 2011."
No more objections, so I proceed LNCSRG (talk) 22:48, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Third Opinion
Okay, so the two previous attempts at WP:3O have not been successful. Mainly because the involved editors have turned their opportunity to state their case into incoherent shouting matches. If you genuinely want a third opinion this is probably your last chance. Below, if you have an opinion about 'EU delegate statement at UNSC being in support of Italy', write one short paragraph explaining the dispute and what you want to be added/removed. Create a subsection with your username such as ===User:Mkdw===. Do not write in anyone else's section. Furthermore, I will make my decision off the arguments provided. I will not take subsequent additions and comments into consideration unless directed to do so. It seems like the conversation is endless and henceforth nearly impossible for someone neutral to come in and make a decision. Mkdwtalk 22:17, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
User:LNCSRG
Very well, Mkdw, and thank you for giving us another chance to a 3O.
IMHO this statement by Ioannis Vrailas, Deputy Head of the European Union Delegation at UN, during an international conference about maritime piracy:
"The effectiveness of the international efforts to counter piracy depends also on the full respect of the applicable international law and the flag state jurisdiction in international waters.
We remain deeply concerned by a specific case of disregard of basic international law principles concerning the status of military personnel in action duty as VPD in an official counter-piracy mission, and the flag State jurisdiction in international waters."[115]
...is referred to this case, and is an evidence of support of EU to the Italian interpretation of the international law, insomuch the "status of military personnel in action duty as VPD" is a clear reference to functional immunity of serving soldiers acting jus imperii.
Accordingly, I consider correct to change on the article the following sentence:
This rationale was reasserted during the UN Security Council debate after the 6865th SC Meeting by the Italian representative. In response, the Indian representative asserted that case was sub juris and was being dealt in accordance with international law.
back to:
This rationale was reasserted during the UN Security Council debate after the 6865th SC Meeting by the Italian and the European Union representatives. In response, the Indian representative asserted that case was sub juris and was being dealt in accordance with international law.
regards LNCSRG (talk) 23:11, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Inquiry In your own words, why do other editors contest this addition? Mkdwtalk 23:23, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Reply to inquiry: as you can read, Mr, Vrailas never explicitly mention Italy, India, the Enrica Lexie ship, the Marines, etc. so this/these editor(s) claim(s) Mr. Vrailas could have been speaking about other facts.
My counter-arguments are 1) no other international incident could apply, given the mention of "status of military personnel" (i.e. functional immunity) 2) Italian Foreign Minister Terzi has been quoted[116] to link this speech to Italian marines case, saying ""Ripeto, c'è stata una posizione ferma, decisa, pubblica dell'Unione europea a sostegno della nostra tesi" (I repeat, there has been a stern, determined, public stance by European Union supporting our thesis) LNCSRG (talk) 12:23, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
The second source provided once translated (and confirmed by Google Translate) seems to substantiate the position that the EU was in support of Italy over the issue. Even if not directly stated by a representative of the EU, the fact that an official from Italy cites that is a fairly solid source unless there is another contrasting and equally reliable source. Before I can make a full and balanced decision I would like to hear from the opposition. If agreeable, a reasonable amount of time such as two days, and if no reply then under WP:CYCLE the change should be implemented and considered consensus. Mkdwtalk 12:35, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
OK, no objection so far, so I proceed. LNCSRG (talk) 14:32, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
No opposition has been presented lately. Based upon the statements made here I recommend temporarily making the changes as you request. That said, it does not necessarily mean that there is still no disagreement. It could be simply the other editors are taking time away due to the holidays. As such, if disagreement arises again and cannot be solved by further discussion, then you may want to file for another third opinion or you can leave me a note on my talk page and I will reassess the arguments. Please note that my comment here is merely a recommendation because of lack of representation from the opposition and not an endorsement to the changes to be used in future arguments. Happy edits. Mkdwtalk 21:30, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Back after vacations. happy New Year to all Wikipedia contributors and readers.
For info, the EU Vice-President's spokesperson has issued a statement (dated 21-december but only recently published on the EEAS website here [117]) extending support to the Italian authorities on this incident. This 'policy' statement is enough of a clarification from a 'principal' policy-maker to remove any ambiguity that existed. With this recent development, I no longer have any objection to mentioning that the EU has extended support to Italy and that it looks forward to resolving this crisis within the framework of UNCLOS.
Now, they are flying back to India after Latorre said to press "we are going back to India, so to keep our word of Italians, trusting justice". [124]
I intend to add something about this on the article, as soon as I can find some spare time. However, if some other editor has enough time sooner and is willing to do so, please feel free to proceed accordingly.
LNCSRG (talk) 22:42, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I see there are no volunteers, so I proceed to update the article myself LNCSRG (talk) 08:45, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Indian Supreme Court ruling.
Interesting news. I post some link here, everybody feel free to update the article accordingly (unfortunately I have no time now).
In English: [133], [134],[135],[136], [137], [138]
In Italian: [139], [140], [141], [142] 89.97.208.106 (talk) 10:00, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
ICC Commercial Crimes Service register indicates that a ship reported an attempted pirate attack while docked 2.5 miles away from Kerala coast.[2] However, the ICC report of this incident makes no mention of the name of the vessel involved.
On 21 February, the Hellenic Merchant Marine categorically stated said that no Greek ship was involved in a piracy attack off the coast of southern India in recent days.[3][4]
Staffan de Mistura, the Italian Deputy Foreign Minister, has recognised that the death of the two fishermen was an "accidental killing" and an "unfortunate incident" which occured after the two marines used lethal force from onboard the Enrica Lexie.[5][6][7]
In April 2013, La Repubblica released excerpts of the Italian Navy military investigative report by Rear Admiral Alessandro Piroli which confirms that NATO bore bullets from 2 guns from Enrica Lexie were in bodies of fishermen. The Alessandro Piroli dossier which compiled the findings of the 5-member military investigation team sent to India and was submitted to the Italian government in May 2012. Furthermore, the report also concurs with the Indian Coast Guard's estimated time and location of the shooting. Rear Admiral Alessandro Piroli's report details interviews with the VPD team members, civilian crew of Enrica Lexie, analysis of data recorded in the ship log-book of MV Enrica Lexie, photographs taken by the VPD team members during the incident and detailed forensic examination of the victims in addition to the ballistic investigation of the weapons and ammunition involved in the shooting.
Intervention by Catholic Cardinal of Kerala
According to Vatican-based Catholic news agency Agenzia Fides, the newly consecrated Cardinal of the Catholic Church, Mar George Alencherry from Kerala, has called for a "peaceful solution" to the issue. He has appealed to the Kerala government not to resort to "precipitate action" and warned the opposition against trying to exploit the situation. He said, "I am and will remain in close contact with the Catholic Ministers of Kerala and I hope that they will help to pacify the situation."[8]
However, a spokesman of the Kerala-based Syro-Malabar Church said that the statement of Alancherry was "distorted" by media and he had not said anything that went against India's position on the issue.[9]
The news report from the Vatican Insider quotes Alencherry as follows, "I learnt about the Catholic fishermen who were killed: it is very sad. I contacted Catholic ministers straight away, asking the government in Kerala not to act hastily. Errors of course were made during the incident, as fishermen were mistaken for pirates. The point, however, is that it seems the opposition party wants to take advantage of the situation and manipulate the case for electoral reasons, making reference to western powers and to America’s attempt to gain supremacy."[10]
The Cardinal later issued a press statement which said, "The report of the Italian press agency is wrong. The agency removed the report and expressed their apology for the mistake. I have not tried to intervene in this matter, nor have I contacted any ministers regarding this. Two precious lives have been lost. Strong legal action should be taken against the guilty."[11]
Link to Finmeccanica VIP helicopter bribery scandal
Clearly, my edits to provide a neutral point of view (also including the Government of India's version) has been vandalized by 81.240.136.254. Either take away the complete section, or please NPOV. This section is now simply rumors and speculations, especially since there has been only improvement in Indo-Italian relationship, after the return of the Marines.
Dexter73 (talk) 12:06, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I second your stance. BTW NPOV has always been a problem for this article, since it is about ongoing event with two conflicting sides and very little in between. 89.97.208.106 (talk) 17:53, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I feel that section should remain for the following reasons :
(1) the possibility of a 'link' is more than just a random hypothesis coming from a lone-wolf politician. The Indian media has relayed opinions from editorials by leading political commentators and more importantly politicians who have gone on record in the Indian Parliament raising the likely-hood of a link between the helicopter scandal related investigations in Italy and the Indian govt's handling of the Italian marines.
(2) you cannot wish away the fact that the Indian opposition parties have officially warned the UPA government in Parliament that they will not accept delays in the Finmeccanica kick-back investigation on the pretext of the diplomatic spat between Italy and India. So, this simple fact shows that the Indian Govt was pressured into not accepting the mofified 'status-quo' when Italy unilaterally decided not to return the marines
(3) no one can wish away the fact that media was awash with info on how the UPA govt was gong 'soft' on the marines right from the beginning of this incident in february 2012 and linked this all to the "Italian connection" through Ms.Sonia Gandhi.
(4) Considering that other 'hypothetical' happenings (supposed involvement of a Greek tanker, supposed intervention of a Catholic Cardinal, etc.,) have made it to the main page with sections of their own, it is fair that this supposed happening which has found extremely wide media coverage also warrant a section in it's own merit.
Thanks 81.240.136.254 for your original research. But sorry, you fail to convince me. And I am not interested in the other sections, if you want you are free to correct them or put it under NPOV. Two wrongs does not make a right. I fail to understand why you should remove my edits which states the governments point of view. What is wrong in that? My links to the governments website on the CBI enquiry, the statements of the Defense minister, and newspaper articles on CBI raids on the scam, the receipt of documents from Italy on this issue: these are not worth mentioning for NPOV according to you? I don't get it! Why are you insisting that only one side of the story should appear in Wikipedia?
Dexter73 (talk) 13:45, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
I have included info to say that the Indian Defense Minister has said that the CBI is actively investigating the matter. 91.182.125.1 (talk) 13:58, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree with the arguments made by /81.240.136.254 and opine that the section on Finmeccanica VIP helicopter bribery scandal needs to stay. 82.236.51.211 (talk) 21:03, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Postal Ballot
Italian consulate says that ANY Italian citizen who is in a foreign land (irrespective of the motives) can be registered onto their "AIRE" (AIRE = Registry of Italian citizens residing abroad) consular data-base provided they have a valid local residency document issued by the local Government. [143] Any Italian citizen has just to produce any type of 'leave to remain' (visa OR residence card OR any other document with address proof). Only 2 conditions need to be fulfilled to vote by postal ballot (1) be registered on the AIRE database and (2) apply for eligibility to vote at-least 10 days prior to the elections. For more info also read "General Elections 2013, voting by Italian citizens living abroad" [144] (Italian Ministry of Interior website)
91.182.125.1 (talk) 13:56, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Court documents
ORIGINAL court documents relating to the MV Enrica Lexie incident
Kerala High Court
29TH DAY OF MARCH 2012, JUSTICE P.S.GOPINATH KERALA HIGH COURT JUDGMENT WP(C) No.6083 OF 2012(I) [145]
3rd day of April 2012, Manjula Chellur, Ag. C.J. & V. Chitambaresh, JJ. KERALA HIGH COURT JUDGMENT W.A. No. 678 & 679 of 2012 - Doramma Vs. M.T. Enrica Lexie, (2) KLJ 398 : 2012 (2) KHC 265 [146]
2nd day of May 2012, Justice R.M. LODHA M.T. Civil Appeal No. 4167 of 2012 arising out of S.L.P. (Civil) No. 11942 of 2012 Enrica Lexie & ANR. Vs. Doramma & Ors. [147][148]
29TH DAY OF MAY 2012 JUSTICE. P.S.GOPINATHAN, KERALA HIGH COURT JUDGMENT WP(C).No. 4542 of 2012 (P) - Massimilano Latorre Vs. Union of India (2012) 252 KLR 794 [149]
Indian Supreme Court
January 18, 2013 IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA, RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS, WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO(s). 135 OF 2012 : REPUBLIC OF ITALY THROUGH AMBASSADOR & ORS. Petitioner(s) VERSUS UNION OF INDIA & ORS. WITH SLP(C) NO. 20370 of 2012 [150] (Supreme Court judgement that State of Kerala as a Unit of the Federal Union of India does not have jurisdiction to try the case)
February 22, 2013 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA, CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION IA 4 OF 2013 IN SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (C)NO. 20370 OF 2012 MASSIMILANO LATORRE AND ORS. Petitioner(s) VERSUS UNION OF INDIA AND ORS. Respondent(s) [151] (Order of Supreme Court of India which had allowed the Italian Marines to go back and had required them to return)
March 03, 2013 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA, CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION IA 4 OF 2013 IN SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (C)NO. 20370 OF 2012 MASSIMILANO LATORRE AND ORS. Petitioner(s) VERSUS UNION OF INDIA AND ORS. Respondent(s) (From the judgement and order dated 29/05/2012 in WPC No.4542/2012 of The HIGH COURT OF KERALA AT ERNAKULAM)[152] (Copy of Supreme Court’s order restraining Italian Ambassdor from leaving India. )
Indian Parliament
08 May 2013, question tabled in Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian Parliament) - [153]
Military investigation report by Admiral Alessandro Piroli
An Italian Official Reconstruction of the facts now (finally) exist. Unfortunately I just found an Italian language version, I will look later for translations: [154]
An important part is that it would seem that rifles allegedly found to be the ones that shoot were not those assiged toGirone and Latorre, but to other colleagues of them
LNCSRG (talk) 11:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
I am interested in reading the english translation of this official reconstruction of 'facts'. Please do upload it here or provide a link that can be viewed by readers for independent opinions & fact-checking verifications.
All of a sudden a whole lot of information is being revealed in the Italian media. Extracts from Admiral Alessandro Piroli's preliminary military report has hit the stands in Italy on 6 April. Also, Terzi has given several interviews saying that he was the one who did not want the Enrica Lexie to dock in India and also that he was by-passed by the Italian President who appointed Mistura as his Special Envoy to India (allegedly without Terzi being informed).
Can someone obtain the full version of the Admiral Alessandro Piroli investigation report mentioned in the Italian media ? From the extracts that are viewable on the LA REPUBBLICA website, it is clear that Italian manufactured NATO bore bullets shot from barrels of 2 guns assigned to the Enrica Lexie VPD team were in bodies of fishermen.
Many Italian newspapers are currently publishing extracts of Admiral Alessandro Piroli's report at this point of time
Please read this article (translated ofcourse with Google Translate) [159] & [160]
Ballistics investigation (as from Alessandro Piroli's report) categorically confirms that ENRICA LEXIE and the SAINT ANTHONY were indeed involved in the shooting incident. Reason: Fragments of NATO bore bullets & tracer ammunition that were fired from 2 rifles issued to VPDs on Enrica Lexie were found in the bodies of the fishermen) So, we can TOTALLY DISCARD the Greek tanker conspiracy theory. The report mentions striking similarities between photos taken by VPD team on Enrica Lexie and the media footage of the Saint Anthony fishing vessel.
The TIME and LOCATION of the incident also seems to confirm the Indian Coast Guard statements given to the Indian courts.
The Piroli report says: "If the results of the Indian tests are confirmed or if, as a consequence of further investigations acknowledged also by the Italian party, the authorities will prove that the bullets belong to the Italian marines, then the competent judiciary should find out if the fire was open with ... " — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.28.112.212 (talk) 23:15, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Long and convoluted sentence in lead
The lead for this article is too long and needs to be shortened. The lead is supposed to summarize the key points. Paragraphs such as:
The Italian Government opined that the VPD "team Latorre" is protected by functional immunity for their actions and that they can only be tried in the flag-State country (Italy) since the shooting incident occurred in International Waters. India refused to accept Italy's claim that the VPD team were discharging sovereign functions for the Republic of Italy at the time of the incident because the armed guards were privately contracted for the protection of commercial interests of Naples-based Dolphin Tankers whose parent company is Fratelli D'Amato.
do not belong in the lead. The three of four key elements and their relationship should be summarized in the lead, the rest belongs in the text.
Elements:
Italian oil tanker guards fired on Indian fishing vessel
I've taken a shot at the lead-text of the article by redacting it to leave just the when-what-who-where-why 81.240.140.169 (talk) 20:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.170.66.151 (talk)
KINDLY REFRAIN FROM INCLUDING CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS
@ All contributors : There are many contributors who submit in good faith and strive to improve the quality of the article and keep it updated as and when new facts emerge. However, it is unfortunate that there are a few who resort to indiscriminate page vandalism based on past hypothesis that are no longer valid (in view of newly disclosed information from the courts or the news media). So, I appeal that good sense prevails. THANKS ALL !!!
Why are Italian origin contributors bent upon VANDALIZING this article with OLD CONTROVERSIES ?
Please, consider the following point : yes, indeed the Italian parliament was briefed about many things by the Italian Government in 2012 and 2013. BUT THERE IS ONE CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT that has occurred over the past fortnight : the preliminary Italian investigation report compiled by Rear Admiral Alessandro Piroli has been 'leaked' to the media in Italy.
Italian media have expressed surprise that such an important report (submitted in MAY 2012) has been kept away from public scrutiny and are questioning the intentions of the Italian Government in keeping this report secret in light of the numerous speculative controversies that have surrounded the shooting incident involving the VPD team of the Enrica Lexie.
For information on the preliminary Italian investigation report compiled by Rear Admiral Alessandro Piroli please refer to links already provided on this TALK page under a separate section.
Italian readers can read (and also download in PDF format) the original print version of the La Repubblica article on the Italian Ministry of Defence website's media section here [161] 06/04/2013 - "LA REPUBBLICA", Pag. 19 I MARO' E I PESCATORI INDIANI QUEI 33 MINUTI DI TERRORE di: MAURA GUALCO and [162] 07/04/2013 - "LA REPUBBLICA", Pag. 17 "MARO', ECCO TUTTE LE COLPE DEL COMANDANTE DELLA LEXIE" di: MAURA GUALCO
Italian media has severely criticized the Italian Government for allowing controversies (about TIME, LOCATION and the actual details of the SHOOTING to pollute the general public's understanding of the happenings on-board the ENRICA LEXIE oil tanker) to continue DESPITE knowing from Rear Admiral Alessandro Piroli's report that (quoting from the report) : "For the sake of completeness we summarize the results which would reach the Indian authorities (...) were analyzed four bullets, two found on the fishing boat and two bodies of the victims. Exhibits showed that the ammunition is of caliber 5.56 mm NATO made in Italy. The tracer extracted from the body of Valentine Jelestine were fired from the rifle with serial number assigned to First Corporal Andronico Massino. The bullet extracted from the body of Ajiesh Pink were fired from the rifle with serial number assigned to Sergeant Vogilano Renato."
From the report compiled by Rear Admiral Alessandro Piroli we can see that many controversies are immediately extinguished. REASON: Rear Admiral Alessandro Piroli states the fact that NATO bore bullets issued to marines and fired from guns issued to the VPD team on Enrica Lexie were found within the bodies of the dead fishermen
The new revelations from the Italian military investigation report of Rear Admiral Alessandro Piroli immediately lifts the veil on many 'unknowns' namely :
(1) Greek oil tanker OLYMPIC FLAIR controversy
(2) TIME & LOCATION of the incident
(3) official Italian military opinion on whether the Enrica Lexie properly applied the IMO anti-piracy protocol on RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
(4) Italian military opinion on whether the Italian VPD team followed all steps of the gradual use of force in the event of piracy
(5) the report also comments in detail how lethal force was used against the fishing vessel
(6) the report also mentions that the Italian investigators have several photographs of the fishing vessel and that the photography appear to concur with the paint-scheme and physical aspect of the SAINT ANTHONY fishing vessel
(7) the report categorically states that the tanker should have taken steps to avoid the fishing vessel and that the fishing vessel had navigational right of way (8) according to Italian Navy Admiral Alessandro Piroli the tanker did not initate any steps to avoid the fishing vessel even though it had identified the fishing vessel on it's radar well before hand. The report is critical of the captain of the Enrica Lexie in stating that he initiated his manoeuvrings only when he was within 500 meters of the fishing vessel and the tanker started turning away when it was less than 100 meters from the fishing vessel
(8) The Alessandro Piroli report also takes care to detail why and how the Enrica Lexie was brought into the port of Kochi after interception by the Indian Coast Guard and Indian Navy.
Please (Italian readers and contributors) take note of the entire contents of the preliminary Italian investigation report compiled by Rear Admiral Alessandro Piroli which has been released on the LA REPUBBLICA website [163] & [164] before re-starting a debate with old and outdated information.
Actually I think what you call vandalism is just Italians reporting things according to Italian official stance, that, we know very well, differs significantly from the Indian one.
BTW, half of this article deals with this problem of contrasting and irreconcilable versions of the facts, not to mention interpretations of the international law LNCSRG (talk) 09:28, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Not to forget that even within the Italian stance there are conflicting opinions on what really took place. Former FM Terzi claiming that there was subterfuge by Indian police (only to be rebuffed by Indian authorities who dismissed his claims as allegations because Italy has NEVER taken any steps to show ANY proof that the Enrica Lexie was brought to port as a result of subterfuge by Indian police authorities).
On a different aspect of disagreement, Italian claim of piracy assault, it is pertinent to note that the deputy FM Mistura and also Italian PM Monti have publicly recognized in various statements that refer to the incident with words like 'accidental shooting', 'mistook the fishermen for pirates', etc., thereby seeming to accept that the Italian marines did err in their judgement and opened fire on the Saint Anthony thinking that it was a pirate skiff.
I for one would like to understand how/where/what happened by reading official documents from Italy investigation authorities (even if not in the minutest of details, just like what has been submitted to the Indian courts by Indian investigative authorities). To date, the Italian defense attorneys in India have submitted nothing at all as proof to substantiate any of their version of events (no photos, no VDR recordings, no radar tracks, no transcript of communications exchanged with Italian authorities in Rome, etc.,).
As things stand, it appears that there is more information about the chronology of events on board the Enrica Lexie from the Indian investigations which were submitted in court. The total black-out on what and where the Italian investigation has uncovered is unfortunate because it would be easy to confront the proof submitted by both sides.
My humble opinion is that India could disclose coastal surveillance data to establish who/what kind of boats were in the vicinity of the Enrica Lexie during the course of her voyage off the coast of India. Italy for it's part should disclose proof to substantiate it's claims of subterfuge and also about the piracy assault by a skiff.
LA REPUBBLICA released excerptes of the minitary investigative report by Admiral Alessandro Piroli which confirms NATO bore bullets from 2 guns of enrica Lexie were in bodies of fishermen. Furthermore, the report also concurs with the Indian Coast Guard's estimated time of the shooting. Admiral Alessandro Piroli (senior most Italian investigator sent to India) came to this conclusion following interviews with the VPD team members, log report of Enrica Lexie, interview with civilian crew (Captain of Enrica Lexie) and also ballistic investigation. 81.240.143.138 (talk) 08:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
ARTICLE CLEAN-UP SUGGESTION
@contributors : May I suggest that the "2012 Italian shooting in the Arabian Sea " article be cleaned-up by discarding old information in view of the recent developments in this case ?
The candidates for removal are all the CONSPIRACY THEORIES that have been fanned by fringe elements in the media and sustained by politicians.
We can quite safely assume that the official documents compiled and submitted by duly accredited government investigators to the courts and/or respective governments are genuine information sources.
Amongst those government documents which have made their way to the internet are :
Indian court documents (including coast guard, navy and police investigation documents in addition to Italian affidavits)
Italian military investigation (the Alessandro Piroli report)
I hesitate to add add official press releases from government ministries and agencies to this list because there have been cases where (for political reasons or otherwise) there have been press statements in both India and Italy which have been misleading. So, I would not venture to blindly trust press statements (especially from politicians) unless it is cross-verified independently with facts.
This is a suggestion that I submit here for comment. So, please feel free to add your constructive inputs.
While I concur on your general rationale, I think that, according to Wikipedia standards, those you call conspiracy theories should have a brief mention anyway, because Wikipedia exist to inform about relevant facts, even when they are eventually proved wrong.
Now, I see that, for example, the mention of the Olympic Flair has been completely removed from the article. I would rather leave there a short sentence stating that some Italian media speculated about that tanker involvement, yet it has been eventually discarded in the light of information that have been eventually made known. LNCSRG (talk) 07:00, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Brace yourselves folks, we have the controversy expert Luigi Di Stefano [165] once again back in action to show-case his expert investigations with a 'conference' road-show in Italy. We can expect an edit war once again with his 'incontrovertible facts' !
For those who don't remember Luigi Di Stefano and his "SeenInside" conspiracy website, this is the individual who fabricated evidence regarding the Olympic Flair conspiracy, bullet identification as AK-47 (or Sri Lankan coast-guard, or Chinese AK47, or vintage WW-II type) calibre theory, the zig-zag ballistics flight hypothesis, the forensics report forgeries conspiracy, etc., and which was subsequently picked up and reprinted as 'expert opinion' by the hawkish right-wing Italian newspapers.
See also the archives of this talk page dating from NOV 2012 titled "FAKE CONTENT ON OLYMPIC FLAIR SECTION" [166] and OCT 2012 [167].
Propaganda of Luigi Di Stefano on his "SeenInside" website did not stand scrutiny then in Nov 2012 and ESPECIALLY at present in the light of new info from the Alessandro Piroli report.
What to trust : The "Alessandro Piroli report" by a high-ranking, distinguished and serving Italian Navy Admiral or a conspiracy theory author self-portrayed as a 'court expert' (without proving his licence as a accredited technical expert recognised by Italian Justice Ministry) ?
Luigi Di Stefano is a buffoon and his "SeenInside" website is nothing short of biased propaganda ! 91.182.103.32 (talk) 15:44, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
The conspiracy artist "Grifo" (another pseudonym of Luigi Di Stefano) has updated his website with technical info on WTC 9/11 conspiracy. Get an aspirin and visit http://www.seeninside.net/911/
Stefano Tronconi is another Italian 'fly by night' operator who pedals the propaganda from SEENINSIDE website of Luigi Di Stefano 81.240.144.112 (talk) 19:08, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
@User talk:I dream of horses: Most wikipedia contributors take time to contribute in improving articles in good faith.
Your revert action of my contributions took you just a few seconds but in the process destroyed work on the article which took me a few hours to compile & collate data, imagine text layout schemes, optimize texts (for display on desktop and mobile devices), etc.,
Looking at your talk page archives I see that you have a track-record of often resorting to deletions/reverts and then claim that it was a 'mistake'. This attitude is really not constructive.
I will however take time to explain the methodology of text editing in my contributions.
Specifically compare diffs [168] and understand that I have NOT DELETED any of the text contributed by user "Aries force" but simply REGROUPED the text it together with other text excerpts from the Alessandro Piroli report.
With your reference to my edit [169], do keep in mind that
1/ we are dealing with many quotes which are no more than partial sentences and which
2/ are not readily incorporable into article when translated with an online translation tool (see for yourself [170] & [171]) and
3/ therefore need to be completed with publicly available investigation data/info, like for example Indian/Italian court affidavits (which can be considered genuine since they were vetted and submitted under oath by State actors), so that a more intelligible translation of the text can be provided and
4/ be improved as and when new details emerge or become noticed
This is this methodology that I have used in recompiling the numerous extracts of the Alessandro Piroli report that were contained in various parts of the article (and also elsewhere on the internet) into one sub-section.
For all the above-stated reasons, kindly note that I have reverted your deletion of my contribution.
In view of your track-record of repeated reverts/deletions of contributions on Wikipedia, I have placed a EDIT WARNING on your talk page and will be obliged to escalate the matter if you continue to cause disruption to the article.
If you have any suggestions to improve this article, then please make it here instead of deleting contributions without offering any alternative solutions.
I would underscore that I have nothing about his editing the opening paragraph of the article in order to enhance the current understanding of the incident. But, until all facts are granted with the trial closing, you should not write as there is certainity. Staffan de Mistura (a swedish diplomat naturalized italian) is heavily contested of operating against the italian reputation. So please, understand. Italian lawyers are ... lawyers, not judges.
Also the payment to the damaged families is contested, as a too fast implicit declaration of fault, before trial and without any respect of the rights of the italian soldiers. In Italy there is a long list of unpleasant international incidents that have been given the wrong story or are still awaiting an answer, so please, forget "italian officials".--Robertiki (talk) 13:50, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
@User talk:Robertiki: I have redacted/reverted your inclusion of the word "supposedly" in the article because it is POV.
Your POV inclusion of the word "supposedly" is incorrect and should not appear in the sentence (because this word changes the entire meaning of the sentence)
Furthermore, your claim that DR.STAFFAN DE MISTURA, the Italian Deputy Foreign Minister and also Italy's Special Envoy to India, cannot be trusted because he is a naturalised Italian citizen [I quote you "Staffan de Mistura (a swedish diplomat naturalized italian) is heavily contested of operating against the italian reputation."] carries hints of racism on your part besides being a controversial POV claim. Your earlier claim made on the EDIT page saying that "Italian officials lie too easily" is simply LUDICROUS !!!.
Some valid reasons (among a whole lot of others) on why it is generally accepted that the VPD team did infact shoot on a fishing boat/vessel :
1/ Italian Special Envoy and Deputy Foreign Minister Staffan de Mistura has publicly acknowledged that the Italian marine guards opened fire on a fishing boat. Please see YouTube for the interview.
2/ Italian lawyers have accepted in court that the Italian guards opened live-fire on a fishing boat.
3/ Italian Navy and Italian Defense Ministry have both issued statements saying that the armed guards of Nuclei Militari di Protezione (NPM) onboard the Enrica Lexie opened fire on 15 february 2012 at a fishing vessel.
Therefore, it is an uncontested FACT that the armed marine guards shot at a fishing-boat.
Hence, your inclusion of the word "SUPPOSED" is not just WRONG but also a CONTROVERSIAL and a POV HYPOTHESIS.
I have modified the opening paragraph to plainly state the facts using documentation that have been submitted to the Indian courts by the Indian investigators and separately to the Italian government by the Italian Military investigators. Instead of stating that the Italian marines fired and killed the fisherment on the fishing boat (which has become commonly accepted in international media as having occurred), I have split this into two phrases. First phrase, to say that the VPD team fired at a fishing boat (which is undisputed because the Italian Defence Ministry said so in a communiqué released immediately after the incident). And second, I have highlighted the fact that forensic and ballistic analysis has linked the shrapnel, found in the dead bodies of the slain Indian fishermen, to the ammunition and weapons belonging to the VPD marines onboard the Enrica Lexie (which also no one can dispute in light of the Alessandro Piroli report and Indian court documents.
Do read the text excerpts from the Alessandro Piroli report as well as the court documents which are freely available in the public domain on the internet and for which URLs have been provided here on the TALK page of the wiki.
All my reverts referred you to reasons which have been amply discussed and documented here on the talk page.
In view of your repeated reverts/deletions of contributions on Wikipedia, I have placed a EDIT WARNING on your talk page and will be obliged to escalate the matter if you continue to cause disruption to the article.
If you have any suggestions to improve this article, then please make it here instead of modifying contributions with your POV hypothesis.
Maybe nationalism, not racism (he is white). The controversy has escalated to a heavily nationalistic tone, so the fact that De Mistura has become italian only in the late years, is pertinent. And if you had lived in Italy at least a decade, you would agree about the difficult of italian officials to say the same thing all the time and all together. Anyway, is it or is it not the law, that you have to wait a verdict before guilty is declared ? "supposedly" is not wrong, but simply prudence. Be patient and wait the end of at least the Indian trail. I accept all your informations, and have also translated in the italian page a part that looks not good for the italian side. But you have already reached a verdict, and that is not acceptable. "supposedly" does not change the meaning of the sentence, buy only remembers that at this stage there are still some unresolved doubts. Please be patient.--Robertiki (talk) 15:54, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
@User talk:Robertiki I am astonished and stunned by the reasons that you give for your so-called nationalism.
Your claim that Staffan De Mistura cannot be trusted is just too much for me to digest. May I remind you that he is an Italian citizen who has gained the trust of the elected parliamentary representatives of the people of Italy. His appointment as the Deputy FM of Italy has been endorsed by the Italian parliament. It is nonsense to contest the legitimacy of Staffan De Mistura who's biography states that he has been a senior minister in 2 successive cabinets in Italy, a former United Nations senior officer, the Italian Prime Minister's Special Envoy, etc.,
I am appalled by your statement (which I quote) "In Italy there is a long list of unpleasant international incidents that have been given the wrong story or are still awaiting an answer, so please, forget "italian officials".
Discrediting an Italian Government Minister as being unfaithful to Italy's interests is WRONG
Stating that the actions/words of Italian Government officials should be discarded is also WRONG
Since Italy is not an authoritarian State, I assume that Italy's Government and Italian officials can be trusted at-least in their international relationships with other countries.
Here on Wikipedia if you want to make assertions which introduce controversies, then there are rules to be followed to go beyond the stage of POV.
I am quite happy to stand my ground and feel confident that a third-party review will conclude that your opinions are entirely POV.
All right, I have my faults (this morning I was somewhat upset), and I will tone down, limiting to a dispute resolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:2012_Italian_shooting_in_the_Laccadive_Sea#User_81.240.132.34 And for your information, Mr.De Mistura was never elected by the Italian people (I don't know if he ever partecipated). Was put in office by Mr.Monti which was not elected. And Mr.Monti was only fourth (10%) in the only election he tried (this year, before he was never elected, first time "appointed" in the European Commission - not elected - by Mr.Berlusconi and then by Mr.Napolitano as Prime Minister - not elected. So you see, 3 years of "democratic" expression of people's aspirations ... Besides, for your stunning: "nationalism" has no reasons and no justifications. --Robertiki (talk) 16:33, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
Please refer to European Parliament & European Commission official statements if you can trust them instead of Italian media articles and official government reports.
If wikipedia is to exclude all the statements from Italian officials as being 'suspect', can you imagine the article ? It will only have Indian and international opinions and not present the official Italian perspective at all.
You extremize my words, and not the first time. I never said to exclude all the statements from the italian side. I am trying to explain you that simply, you have to pick carefully which Italian official to read. The litmus tests are "plausibility" and "trasparency". And refering to the Catherine Ashton statement, she made a simple error, correcting it immediately with "detachments for the protection of ships". The italian marines are on the Italian government payroll. The are not payed directly by the ship owners (no mercenary). And it's normal for specific government services that you have to pay the State, despite the taxes paid. De Mistura has made ad awful confusion about that simple question. In english you would say "making simple things complicated" and the question lingers ... why is it doing that ? Wait a moment: are you writing from the European Commission Offices ? --Robertiki (talk) 12:21, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
I endorse the decision by Howicus on the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard [172] to reject the inclusion of the word "supposedly" in the lead text of the article. Official Italian and Indian court and investigation documents have discarded many of the hypothesis raised by Robertiki as either implausible or erroneous.
It apprears that Robertiki keeps repeatedly raising various stray hypothesis that are doing the rounds on conspiracy websites.
The wikipedia article as it stands today correctly reflects the current understanding of the chain of events of Italian and Indian investigators and courts. It also specifically states that the Enrica Lexie incident is still under investigation and that the trial will begin in a Special Court in India.
Forensic analysis by Italian military investigators and Indian police concluded that shrapnel extracted from the corpses of two Indian fishermen killed on the same day, when gunfire from an oil-tanker reached an Indian fishing trawler St-Antony, matched ammunition and the ballistic fingerprints of automatic rifles issued to Nuclei Militari di Protezione (NPM) "team Latorre" on board the Enrica Lexie.
is quite long and convoluted (twisty). It needs either to be broken up into two sentences or significantly shortened. Since it is in the lead, the full details can be explained and sourced in the text of the article, and do not need to be presented there. --Bejnar (talk) 18:18, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
@Bejnar The reason the lead text has become VERY long is because of repeated text vandalism by Italian IPs who kept including POVs. See article archives and even this TALK page. Each time the lead text was appended with additional info so as to prevent POVs from being inserted into the lead and/or sub-sections.
My preference would be to shorten the lead text BUT not without taking measures to prevent the page being vandalized yet again.
I will second the statement by Bejnar that the lead is far too long and complex currently. It desparately wants cutting down to less detail, making clear the elements that he has outlined. If no one else does, i dare say i shall have a shot at it in a bit.
As a second point, i will point out (as has been done previously, further up the page) that what you, IP 91.182... and others above, are calling vandalism isn't; that word has a very specific meaning here, and what you are complaining about does not fit that definition. I suggest you read WP:VANDAL, and realise the mistake you have made. Two clearly defined points of view frequently each see the other's actions as vandalism; a little good faith towards the collaborators, and the article improves. Cheers, LindsayHello 15:33, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
@Lindsay Despite a healthy TALK page wherein controversies have been addressed and authenticated case facts and documents have been shared, we have arbitrary edits of the main text with controversial POVs and ORs. How would you qualify the recurrent edits every few months to modify the article with ORs, POVs and Controversies by Italian IPs ? Is it "Disruptive editing or stubbornness" ?
How i would qualify ~ i think you mean "define" ~ such edits is irrelevant. The community does not define them as "vandalism". Again, i'll refer you to WP:VANDAL; notice the third paragraph: Even if misguided, willfully against consensus, or disruptive, any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia is not vandalism. That's pretty clear, don't you think?
In addition, it is on the "healthy TALK page" that these false claims of vandalism have been made, and it is here that they need to not be made again.
Thirdly, i can find unhelpful edits made by editors apparently from both sides of the dispute, so neither side is alone in using disruptive editing.
And, finally, the point of this talk page is to improve the article. Bejnar made a point about the lead, which i repeated. That is what we should be focusing on, not arguments about who is being stubborn or POV or vandals. I notice that you have made a start at reducing the lead; thank you. It looks much better. Cheers, LindsayHello 05:22, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
@Lindsay Frankly, I am not interested in getting into an argument here on the definition of 'vandalism' in the global sense and here on Wikipedia. As they say here, it's "Schmilblick" of wikipedia.
I've taken a shot at the lead-text to make it as neutral as possible and avoiding all controversies. The text in each sub-section merits to be revisited : fact can be replaced by opinions as and when light is shed on verified and authenticated info that comes out of Indian and Italian official documents.
@All: Whilst it is true that the EDIT HISTORY of the main article shows a recurrent pattern of disruptive text contributions mostly coming from Italy based IPs, it is important to keep in mind the nature of Italian news media : they promote speculations for better audience ratings. Italian contributors should be encouraged to cross-check their information with independant/external sources. Wikipedia guidelines for content submission is useful to avoid silly time wasting by raising unnecessary controversies and speculations.
IP user 90.42.41.219 writes: "Removed unsubstantiated statement/interview attributed to witness" about Vice-Captain Charles Noviello statement: "I'm sure the boat that came close was not the St.Antony. They do not match some details of the vessel I have seen and what I have been shown in the picture of the officials of the Indian Merchant Navy." In a telephone conversation to Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA), he added "I remember the cabin, where there was the helm, was of a different color from what I saw later in the picture." Noviello, who was present at the time when Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone opened fire, added that "none of the people on the boat fell to the ground". The officer said that "the boat was 40-50 meters from the tanker" when he reversed course. "I saw that there were 5 or 6 people on board, but I'm not sure if it was more." The source is RAI, Italy's national public broadcasting company, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance [173] . Now, what is meant by "unsubstantiated" ? a) RAI Online-Editors are liars ? b) The ANSA journalist who spoke with Noviello is a liar ? c) Noviello is a liar ? I would emphasize that the Italian RAI and free networks are giving a version of the events in stark contrast with what you read in this article. We should put a section with the title "Italian version". --Robertiki (talk) 18:07, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Message to Robertiki (talk): Are you not the person who has time and again repeated that Italian news media and officials cannot be trusted and lie too easily ? You even opened a dispute with another user and vehemently stated again and again that Italian politicians and officials should not be listened to.
Is this your argument ? I repeat: what is meant by "unsubstantiated" ? a) RAI Online-Editors are liars ? b) The ANSA journalist who spoke with Noviello is a liar ? c) Noviello is a liar ? I want to understand what is "substantiated". --Robertiki (talk) 00:10, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
@Robertiki (talk): Your contribution history shows that you are a trouble maker. I am not going to get drawn into an argument with someone who is only interested in provoking disputes through disruptive actions.
First: comment on the contributions not the contributor. You are not very nice and, like 81.240.143.138, all you went very personal. "hints of racism", "LUDICROUS", "propaganda coming out of a number of Italian 'right wing' neo-fascist", "is sole intention is to disrupt the Wiki article just because he dislikes Italian politicians", "raising various stray hypothesis that are doing the rounds on conspiracy websites", And about "racism", what is "text vandalism by Italian IPs", "disruptive text contributions mostly coming from Italy based IPs" ? One Editor has explained that what you are calling vandalism isn't, read WP:VANDAL. Have a little good faith towards the collaborators. I would simply say that you have shot at a lot of people that have done editing in good faith. And last, but non least, would you give some example of "my" disruptive actions, apart my unfortunate impatience of 14-15 July 2013 ? --Robertiki (talk) 12:30, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
@Robertiki (talk) : Go grind your axe elsewhere ! I never said anything about vandalism or racism. LIAR is not a nice word to use ! You are the one who not only insinuated but even had unfortunate words to say that Italians are not to be trusted. So, stop using words and phrases which you don't understand the meaning.
I only said that you are disruptive (and never had any racist words against you or said that Italy/Italians were or vandals).
You are creating a bad ambiance by repeated provocations and initiation of arguments.
I agree that liar is not a nice word. But that is what I got first (not from you) about my comment about some italian officials. But also you are extremizing my words. I never wrote that "all" ITALIANS are not to be trusted ! And you have just insulted me: "...stop using words and phrases which you don't understand the meaning". You are putting it too personally. Have I insulted you ? And I am still waiting your position of what is "substantiated", which is all of what I am interested. Instead you are attacking me. What is your problem ? And NOW, I also am personal. --Robertiki (talk) 14:43, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
@Robertiki (talk) : I am not interested in any personal attack. I am only responding to your aggressiveness by pointing out your contradictory and disruptive attitude.
Can you tell me where I said "ALL" Italians could not be trusted ? Never once did I say this. You are insulting me by attributing to me things that I never said. On the contrary, it is YOU who made some outrageous claims about Italy and Italians here on this talk page.
The TG1 claim about the Vice-Captain is an interview that no one knows where it came from. We don't have the transcripts of the statement given to NIA. As you yourself said many times that Italian media cannot be trusted, I am only asking for a counter-verification of these unauthenticated interviews prior to modifying the wikipedia article.
You write about you: "Can you tell me where I said "ALL" Italians could not be trusted ?" My answer: never. But you wrote about me: "You are the one who not only insinuated but even had unfortunate words to say that Italians are not to be trusted." You phrasing is a generalization of my opinion that some italians ARE liars. That is what you said that I said. Therefore I replicated: "I never wrote that "all" ITALIANS are not to be trusted." So you see, I never attributed things you never said, but simply clarified my position. I hope that my patience has clarified the misunderstanding. --Robertiki (talk) 21:10, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
DUH ! This discussion is going nowhere. What a waste of time, space and bandwidth ! 90.42.252.79 (talk) 21:52, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
IP user 90.42.249.104 writes: "Erroneous location info inserted by disruptive contributor (ROBERTIKI) and also without any authenticated citations)". I will "forget" his unjustified personally offensive comment (disruptive ?) and simply remark that I have not inserted any location. I have simply calculated the given position declared in article, adding the name of the nearest town on the coast: "It should be noted that the vessel position 09 20N 075 52E, is 28.2 nautical miles off the south west coast of India, or about 30 nautical miles from Alappuzha." What is my source ? Simply the following words, near the head of the same paragraph: "The Indian Directorate General of Shipping stated: "It has been reported to this Directorate that the Italian flagged MV Enrica Lexie, resorted to firing on an Indian fishing vessel in position 09 20N 075 52E (heading 345 speed 14 kts) at 1700 Hrs on 15th February 2012." and the press information [174]. I have asked to talk before undoing, it is not very constructive to do otherwise. Now, I will revert, after having explained why. Please reply here before undoing a second time. --Robertiki (talk) 04:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
IP 82.122.92.147 writes: "Location: If you insert new coords for shooting location you have to provide your info source failing which it will be removed (without going to TALK page for discussions) Providing verifiable sources is contributing rule for Wiki !". I have not inserted any NEW location. I have simply taken the given position declared in article, adding the name of the nearest town on the coast: "It should be noted that the vessel position 09 20N 075 52E, is 28.2 nautical miles off the south west coast of India, or about 30 nautical miles from Alappuzha." What is my source ? Simply the following words, near the head of the same paragraph: "The Indian Directorate General of Shipping stated: "It has been reported to this Directorate that the Italian flagged MV Enrica Lexie, resorted to firing on an Indian fishing vessel in position 09 20N 075 52E (heading 345 speed 14 kts) at 1700 Hrs on 15th February 2012." and the press information [175]. I have asked to talk before undoing. If it ha been I would have explained your error. Now, I will revert, after having explained why. Please reply here before undoing a second time.--Robertiki (talk) 02:48, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
I am going to redact your inclusion because the location coords have ALREADY been given many times in the article and repeating the same info for an N-th time in an already LONG LONG LONG article is unnecessary ALLTHMORE after many other users have requested that the page be reduced in size/length.
Secondly, the official statements say that the shooting occurred 20.5 nautical miles off the coast of Kerala. Only this info is pertinent as it has legal/judicial bearing on the court case and investigations. By inserting other measuring units (miles/kilometers/etc.,) into the article it only adds to the confusion. So, best to avoid mixing up NAUTICAL MILES and STANDARD MILES in this article.
Thirdly, Providing the distance of the shooting to Alappuzha or any other town/city is of no use because persons can easily find the location on internet with all the online maps. The article already containg more than sufficient location info to give readers a precise notion on where the shooting occurred.
I repeat, the phrase "It should be noted that the vessel position 09 20N 075 52E, is 28.2 nautical miles off the south west coast of India, or about 30 nautical miles from Alappuzha." was not "giving" che location coords but is "referencing" to the location coords given in the paragraph to explain from which point the distance is calculated (albeit with wrong unit).
Secondly, in the official statement given at the end of the paragraph, that is [176], the Italian Embassy claims "... international waters about 30 nautical miles of the south west coast of India". I would say there is no agreement. And both are official positions.
I recognize the confusion with the units of measurement. I will correct giving both units to highlight possible errors to the readers. I don't agree about your insistence that only the "indian" official documents is pertinent. There is a obvious discrepancy between the given position and the distance and that is pertinent: the article is not the press office of the Indian judicial system. Providing the name of a location helps anyone wanting to personally check neutral maps. Our simple dispute is sufficient evidence that the location is all but sure. I will insert: "It should be noted that the vessel position 09 20N 075 52E, is 24.5 nautical miles (28.2 Statute miles) off the south west coast of India, or about 26 nautical miles from Alappuzha."--Robertiki (talk) 15:42, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
I will not agree with reasoning logic of Robertiki who is following pattern of a disruptive user and always creating confusion on this article. The Italian Govt has accepted trial court in India to hear the case. So, I think that it best to stick to authenticated documents and statements made before a court of law rather than keep on citing statements that are made (some of which have been erroneous) to the media-press journalists. Maybe some other users with more experience on dealing with disruption can comment.here.85.170.66.151 (talk) 21:09, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
IP User talk:85.170.66.151 writes: "Reverted multiple revisions/deletions made by Robertiki to version of 09:02, 28 August 2013" without acknowledging the arguments given (apart for replacing "shrapnel" with "fragments").
Indian Coast Guard interception: "However, transcripts submitted to court authorities by the Indian Coast Guard showed that the Enrica Lexie initially refused to comply and only changed course after being forced by Indian naval authorities." has no source or reference therefore it is POV.
Stand-off: "Keeping in mind the wider economic consequences of any dispute with India, the European Union asked Italy in strong words to do the "right things" and send back the marines to India." The source [177] wording is: "But, European Union too was following the issue closely, and had asked Italy in strong words to do the "right things" and send back the marines to India." 1) "Keeping in mind the wider economic consequences" is not present in the source therefore it is POV. 2) "European Union" is generic: the poster "Maitreyee" gives no name, no source, and doesn't cite nothing of the wording of the "strong words" that could be used to do some searching. Sorry, but it is POV. Also your rewriting: "the European Union urged Italy and India to resolve the dispute within the framework of international laws" has no reference and anyway contradicts the source given, which uses "stronger" meanings. I am really interested to know who in the European Union organization asked Italy in "strong words" to send back the marines to India (no pun intended, no controversy). --Robertiki (talk) 17:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
I can only say that this article must be checked and re-checked constantly for POVs and incorrect article sources. I rephrased one part to tone-down the rhetoric but apparently it is inconsistent with the article source (which I usually do but did not have time to consult on this specific occasion). The rechecking of the article is very time consuming and I wish that some-persons can team-up to do it collectively.
Robertiki: Your rude denigration of Italy in earlier posts and is an insult to Italy. Your incessant disruptive edits to the article time and again to introduce confusing text & controversial POVs portrays you in a poor light as an untrustworthy contributor.85.170.66.151 (talk) 20:58, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
It is true what you say about the many POVs and incorrect article sources and about the time consuming need to check fully the article (that looks very India-sided). The article is simply a disaster, I suppose because many italians don't know english or simply are not interested about what happens out their country. The few lines I have edited are "a drop in the ocean" of what would have to be done, and have costed me a lot of time on disputes.
About my supposedly denigration of Italy, should I understand that may edits pose Italy in a bad light ?
Who is opening one talk section's after the other to recheck and explain the reasons and reach a compromise ? It is more time consuming then simply reverting the works of others. May be we had a bad start, but now your's is simply prevention. --Robertiki (talk) 00:42, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
