New Delhi, February 24
The Centre today informed the Supreme Court that the two Italian marines, accused of shooting down two Indian fishermen off Kerala coast on February 15, 2012, would not be slapped with any charge that would entail awarding them death penalty.

Attorney General GE Vahanvati told a Bench comprising Justices BS Chauhan and J Chelameswar that the Union Law Ministry had stated that the anti-terror law, Suppression of Unlawful Activities (SUA) Act, did not apply to the accused marines.

The Centre’s clarification came in response to a petition filed by the Italian government and the marines, Massimilano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, challenging the move to slap terror charges against the accused.

Arguing for the petitioners, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, pleaded that his clients now wanted to challenge the probe conducted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which had the mandate only to go into cases registered under anti-terror and other special laws.