SC allows Italian marine Massimiliano Latorre to travel to Italy on medical grounds
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday allowed Italian marine Massimiliano Latorre, facing murder charges for killing two Kerala fishermen, to go to his country for four months on medical ground.
The apex court said it had agreed to give permission to Latorre after the Italian ambassador undertook to ensure that he returned to India to stand trial.
Italian Ambassador to India Daniel Mancini was present for the hearing.
Latorre had filed the plea after he was admitted to a hospital for a health condition similar to a brain stroke on August 31.
Read: Italian marine, charged with Indian fishermen murder, hospitalised
On Tuesday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had said that India will not stop the Italian marine, facing murder charges, from returning home for medical treatment, a case that had soured relations between New Delhi and Rome.
The marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, part of a military security team protecting a tanker from piracy are accused of shooting two Indian fishermen off the coast of Kerala in February 2012.
Read: Italian marines asked captain to give false statement
Earlier, India had dropped plans to prosecute two Italian marines accused of killing two fishermen under a tough anti-piracy law earlier on February 24, offering a chance to end a diplomatic row between the two countries.
Italy had strongly opposed India invoking the law, arguing that it would amount to treating the men as "terrorists" and it recalled its ambassador to New Delhi in protest against the delay in the two-year-old case.
