Prime Minister declines to comment on Italian marines issue

ONBOARD PM'S SPECIAL AIRCRAFT: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today declined to comment on the case of two Italian marines and the issue of delays in setting up a special court to try them on charges of killing two fishermen off the Kerala coast.

"This is now a story which is part of the judicial process. The Supreme Court has looked at it and a special court has been set up. And I sincerely believe that that is where the matter is should be left," Singh said.

"It will be much too presumptuous on my part to comment on an issue that is sub-judice," he told reporters returning from a 4-day visit to Durban in South Africa where he attended the BRICS summit.

He was asked about the charge by the families of the two dead fishermen that the Centre was deliberately delaying the the process in the case of the marines sent back by Italy last week after a raging diplomatic row.

The marines, Massimiliano Latore and Salvatore Girone, arrested in connection with the killing of the fishermen in February last year, had returned to India on March 22 to meet the deadline set by the Supreme Court.

The Italian government earlier in a dramatic U-turn had agreed to send them back after having refused to do so.