This archive report was first published on 8 July 2020.
Published on July 8, 2020, a former Indian navy officer, Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav, has refused to appeal his death sentence for spying in Pakistan.
According to Pakistani authorities, Jadhav was arrested in 2016 in the southwestern province of Balochistan, where Islamabad has long accused New Delhi of backing separatist rebels.
He was sentenced to death by a closed Pakistani military tribunal in 2017, but the International Court of Justice ordered Islamabad to review the sentence last year.
"Commander Jadhav refused to file a petition for the review and the reconsideration for his sentence and conviction," said attorney general official Ahmad Irfan.
However, Irfan added that Jadhav preferred to follow up on his pending mercy petition.
India maintains that Jadhav retired from the navy in 2001 and was running a logistics business in Iran when he was kidnapped and brought to Pakistan, where he was forced to confess.
The case has further strained the already tense relationship between India and Pakistan, which has worsened since New Delhi expelled two Pakistan embassy officials over spying claims in late May.
