Somalia Pirates seize US-flagged cargo ship

[Ryan Thunder]

Nato said a Canadian warship caught the pirates before releasing them after the gang attacked the MV Front Ardenne.

The alliance said the pirates had been released because they could not be prosecuted under Canadian law.

I could believe it if they'd been released overboard, but what the fuck?

[Kon_El]

There have been statements by Somalis that some entities have been dumping nuclear waste,sickening and even killing Somalis when it washes ashore; and fishing out Somali territorial waters, thus depriving Somali fishermen of food and livelihood.

Are the huge piles of ransom money being used to help the people hurt by these things or are a small group of people just using it as an excuse to get rich?

[Broomstick]

There have been statements by Somalis that some entities have been dumping nuclear waste,sickening and even killing Somalis when it washes ashore; and fishing out Somali territorial waters, thus depriving Somali fishermen of food and livelihood.

Are the huge piles of ransom money being used to help the people hurt by these things or are a small group of people just using it as an excuse to get rich?

Oh, please - of course the rich guys aren't doing any more than they have to for the poor, downtrodden fishermen and coastal villagers. They might throw out a pittance to keep them from forming mobs, but seriously, pirate lords have never done much more than enrich themselves and spread venereal disease. Some of the locals will benefit from an influx of cash form the pirates buying stuff for themselves, but beyond that, nada.

[FSTargetDrone]

Nato said a Canadian warship caught the pirates before releasing them after the gang attacked the MV Front Ardenne.

The alliance said the pirates had been released because they could not be prosecuted under Canadian law.

You've got to be shitting me.

No detainment policy on piracy, sez NATO:

Posted on Sun, Apr. 19, 2009

NATO forces rescue 20 who were held by pirates

By Todd Pitman and Katharine Houreld

Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya - NATO forces rescued 20 fishermen from pirates who launched the latest attack in the Gulf of Aden yesterday but let the Somalian hijackers go because they had no authority to arrest them.

The release underscored the difficulties of stopping the piracy scourge in the Horn of Africa, where bandits also seized a Belgian-flagged ship carrying 10 foreign crew near the Seychelles islands and started hauling it toward Somalia.

"There isn't a silver bullet," said Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at London-based think tank Chatham House. He said it was common for patrolling warships to disarm and then free brigands because they rarely had jurisdiction to try them.

Pirate attacks have increased in recent weeks, with fishermen-turned-gunmen from Somalia searching for targets farther out to sea as ships try to avoid the anarchic, clan-ruled nation.

Pirates have attacked more than 80 vessels this year.

Yesterday's first attack occurred before dawn, when pirates hijacked the Belgian-flagged Pompei a few hundred miles north of the Seychelles, said Portuguese Lt. Cmdr. Alexandre Santos Fernandes, who is traveling with a NATO fleet patrolling farther north in the Gulf of Aden.

Belgian officials said the ship sounded three alarms, indicating it was under attack, as it headed toward the palm-fringed islands, a high-end tourist destination, with a cargo of concrete and stones. The dredging ship had 10 crew members.

As pirates steered the ship northwest toward Somalia, 430 miles away, a Spanish military ship, a French frigate, and a French scout ship were all steaming toward the area to try to intercept it.

In a second attack yesterday, pirates on a small white skiff fired small arms and rockets at a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker. Fernandes said the Handytankers Magic issued a distress call shortly after dawn but escaped using "speed and maneuvers."

A Dutch frigate from the NATO force responded immediately and trailed the pirates to a Yemeni-flagged fishing dhow the brigands had seized Thursday, Fernandes said.

The pirates climbed into the dhow and Dutch marine commandos followed soon after, freeing 20 fishermen whose nationalities were not known. Fernandes said that there was no exchange of fire and that Dutch forces seized seven automatic weapons and one rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Seven Somalian pirates were briefly detained, but they were soon released because "NATO does not have any detainment policy," Fernandes said. Another reason the pirates could not be arrested: They were seized by Dutch nationals and the pirates, the victims, and the ship were not Dutch, he said.

The Canadian warship had the same issue as the Dutch. The hostages were not Canadian.

[Broomstick]

Then it is time to change some laws and/or treaties.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Actually the existing internal law provides for universal jurisdiction. It's just that none of the nations in question have actually done anything with that power.

[Rogue 9]

Seven Somalian pirates were briefly detained, but they were soon released because "NATO does not have any detainment policy," Fernandes said. Another reason the pirates could not be arrested: They were seized by Dutch nationals and the pirates, the victims, and the ship were not Dutch, he said.

I refer you to my previous remarks. We're talking about piracy on the high seas here; any warship of any nation has every right to give a summary court martial presided over by the captain, followed by hanging them from the fucking yardarm. What the hell do they mean they don't have a detainment policy?

[Sea Skimmer]

I refer you to my previous remarks. We're talking about piracy on the high seas here; any warship of any nation has every right to give a summary court martial presided over by the captain, followed by hanging them from the fucking yardarm. What the hell do they mean they don't have a detainment policy?

No they don’t. If they signed and ratified the UN convention on the law of the sea they do not have that right at all. You only get powers like that from the earliest treaties, or the era before treaties when the law of the sea was well known, but not written.

The US signed but never ratified, but we follow it anyway. The Dutch, British, French and almost every other single nation in NATO as well as Japan, Russia and India all signed and ratified however, therefore any captured pirates by them must be brought to a recognized court of law on land. That court can then hand down death sentences. The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that many of the nations in question have no death penalty and often have laws saying they cannot legally dump pirates in a country which has one because it would a ‘human rights’ violation. It’s a sickening display of the truth of international law in my opinion, but it is the law they operate on and it’s not going to change. That’s why many warships just don’t even bother; taking pirates to a proper court for a couple year prison sentence would take them off station too long to even be worth it. A dozen attacks would happen while they were busy steaming away and back.

We can only hope captains will be as aggressive as they can be and try to avoid giving the pirates a chance to surrender. The logical solution of putting a court on a warship is very unlikely to happen.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Shipcourt! That would be rather awesome. We could put it in the emptied out SM-1 magazines on the OHPs, with a gaol below it. Jury would be made up of sailors from the ship's crew and we'd fly out a judge to run it. It would never happen, but it would certainly be quite effective.

[MKSheppard]

Or we could just you know; lock them in the fan room, and give them a television set with Pirates of the Caribbean playing on endless loop in a DVD player to keep them entertained until we've collected enough pirates to make going to Kenya worthwhile.

[FSTargetDrone]

Okay, here's an update on the surviving pirate from the Maersk Alabama incident:

April 22, 2009

Pirate Suspect Arrives in New York to Face Charges
By SHARON OTTERMAN

A Somali teenager is due to appear in a New York courtroom on Tuesday for arraignment on charges that he was one of a group of pirates who hijacked a United States-flagged cargo ship and held its American captain hostage for days in a lifeboat on the Indian Ocean.

The suspected pirate, who has been identified in press reports as Abduhl Wali-i-Musi, arrived in New York late Monday to face what are believed to be the first piracy charges in the United States in more than a century.

Surrounded by federal guards and television cameras, the thin young man smiled but said nothing as he was led into a federal building in a driving rainstorm Monday night. He was handcuffed with a chain around his waist, and was clad in a blue jumpsuit, with one hand wrapped in thick white bandages.

The American crew of the cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama, said he was injured when they captured him during the attempted hijacking on April 8. He is the sole Somali survivor of the incident; he had surrendered and was aboard a Naval destroyer when sharpshooters killed the three pirates holding the American captain, Richard Phillips, on the lifeboat.

Mr. Musi’s case has been assigned to a federal magistrate judge, Andrew J. Peck, who was expected to hold a hearing in the case sometime Tuesday afternoon.

“We are expecting this to be a very long trial proceeding,” said Omar Jamal, the director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis, which helps Somali immigrants with legal and social issues. “How long has it been since the United States tried a pirate? They must dig through the books for precedents.”

Mr. Jamal said he had been asked by the accused man’s family to assist with the legal case and that he spoke with the family Monday night, allowing a reporter from The Associated Press to participate in the call.

During the conversation, the accused pirate’s mother said he was just 16, and was lured into piracy by older men with the promise of money.

“I appeal to President Obama to pardon my teenager,” the mother, Adar Abdirahman Hassan, said by telephone from her home in Galkayo, Somalia, The Associated Press reported. “I request him to release my son or at least allow me to see him and be with him during the trial.”

The accused pirate’s father, Abdiqadir Muse, said the family is penniless and that the pirates lied to his son, telling him they were going to get money, The A.P. said.

The center gave a somewhat different rendering of the suspected pirate’s name: Abdiwali Abdirizaq Muse.

His age will be one of the matters at issue as court proceedings unfold in the coming weeks, Mr. Jamal and other lawyers said. American officials have asserted in media reports that the accused pirate is at least 18, which would mean prosecutors will not have to take extra legal steps to try him as an adult in a United States court.

Other issues make the case murky under the federal statue that deals with piracy — 18 U.S. Code Section 1653 , a statute last updated in 1948 — according to the New York defense attorney Ronald L. Kuby, who said he was called in by Mr. Jamal for assistance with the case.

“How did he come into American custody?” Mr. Kuby asked. “There are conflicting reports. Did he come on to the Bainbridge” — the U.S. Navy destroyer on the scene during the standoff — “to seek medical attention, or come under a flag of truce?” In either case, he said, holding the suspected pirate would be a violation of the principle of neutrality, Mr. Kuby said.

The larger issues surrounding piracy near Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991, might also play a role, because the piracy statute speaks about treaties between nations.

A more clear-cut case, Mr. Kuby said, would be to try the young Somali under the federal statue for hostage taking.

A criminal trial would be historic and potentially useful approach to a longstanding problem, other maritime law experts said, noting that piracy in the waters off Somalia has become a growing concern, and that diplomatic and military approaches have yet to tame it.

New York, those experts said, is a logical site for the trial because the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan has developed great expertise in trying crimes that occur outside the United States, including cases in Africa involving terrorism against Americans, such as the Al Qaeda bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998.

Under international law, any country can prosecute acts of piracy committed in international waters, but in practice, not all nations have incorporated anti-piracy statutes into their domestic legislation, said Roger Middleton, an expert on piracy at Chatham House, a research organization based in London.

Warships patrolling the pirate-infested waters off the coast of Somalia under NATO auspices in have not always been holding the suspected pirates they catch. On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Washington that releasing pirates “sends the wrong signal,” and the alliance must discuss ways that they can be brought to justice.

“There isn’t a consistent approach across the world, and you aren’t guaranteed to be prosecuted if you are picked up as a pirate,” Mr. Middleton said.

Benjamin Weiser contributed reporting.

[Aratech]

Is it bad for me to be baffled that the guy's mom is demanding that he be pardoned despite the fact that he and his comrades attempted to and in at least one case, succeeded in holding a man at assault rifle point for several days and is attempting to make a living on a trade for which the entire purpose is to threaten innocent people's lives in exchange for material wealth?

[Knife]

Indeed. Unconditional love besides, I give credit to those who say...well shit he fooled me. Damn I can't believe my kid did that.

[Starglider]

Is it bad for me to be baffled that the guy's mom is demanding that he be pardoned

I think most parents would do anything they could do get their child out of a potential death sentence, when they haven't done anything particularly bad by the standards of the local culture. Widespread violence and racketeering is a fact of life in Somalia, and of course the slick organised crime syndicates managing the pirates have put her up to it.

I am however depressed to see various republitards advocating carpet bombing of the Somalian coast and the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civillians as an appropriate response to a spate of kidnappings.

[FSTargetDrone]

I think most parents would do anything they could do get their child out of a potential death sentence, when they haven't done anything particularly bad by the standards of the local culture.

He will be tried as an adult, facing a life sentence:

Somali Pirate Will Be Tried as an Adult, Judge Rules

By Robin Shulman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 7:52 PM

NEW YORK, Apr. 21 -- A Somali teenager appeared in federal court Tuesday on charges that he helped hijack an American cargo ship and hold its captain hostage on the Indian Ocean.

The young man identified as Abduwali Abukhadir Muse, said to be the sole survivor among four pirates, frequently wiped his eyes in court and stared straight ahead as he listened to a simultaneous translation of the proceedings through an earpiece.

He is charged with piracy under the law of nations, which carries a mandatory life sentence, as well as four lesser charges, including conspiracy and brandishing and firing a gun during a conspiracy. He is believed to be the first person to be charged in the United States with piracy in almost a century.

On Monday night, Muse had walked bemusedly into the path of photographers' flashes during a rainstorm, handcuffed with a chain wrapped around his waist. His left hand was bandaged from a stab wound he suffered on the ship.

Reporters camped overnight outside New York's Southern District Court, waiting for a glimpse of the young Somali, who had moved from local brigandage to international infamy.

In court Tuesday, he seemed slight, and he broke down in tears when his court-appointed lawyer said Muse's father could be interviewed by telephone in Somalia to ascertain the date of his birth.

When the federal magistrate judge, Andrew J. Peck, asked if he understood that court-appointed lawyers would represent him, he said aloud in Somali: "I understand. I don't have any money."

Asked to raise his right hand to be sworn in, Muse raised his arm high above his head.

Peck later announced that Muse could stand trial as an adult.

The government says he is 18, but his lawyers say he is only 15. The court eventually placed a conference call to Muse's father, who said his son's birthday is Nov. 20, 1993. But Peck said the father was not credible, because he was inconsistent and did not know the precise birthdates of his other children. Birth records could be unavailable because of the long-standing chaos in Somalia.

Muse is accused of being one of four Somali hijackers who attacked the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama cargo ship and took its captain hostage for five days. The Somali was taken aboard a U.S. Navy ship before Navy SEAL snipers killed the three other pirates. Capt. Richard Phillips was rescued unharmed.

American officials have said the teenager will face trial in New York in part because the FBI office here has a history of handling cases involving crimes against Americans. It dealt with the al-Qaeda bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998.

Speaking to reporters outside the court, Muse's lawyers raised the possibility that, as part of Somalia's civil war, Muse himself may have been captured by the pirates and forced to participate in their mission.

The government's complaint describes Muse as the ringleader among the pirates.

I bet he never imagined he'd get a free, presumably one-way trip to the US when he set out a few weeks back with the others.

[FSTargetDrone]

(Sorry for the double post, but it seemed appropriate to have this here.)

No they don’t. If they signed and ratified the UN convention on the law of the sea they do not have that right at all. You only get powers like that from the earliest treaties, or the era before treaties when the law of the sea was well known, but not written.

The US signed but never ratified, but we follow it anyway. The Dutch, British, French and almost every other single nation in NATO as well as Japan, Russia and India all signed and ratified however, therefore any captured pirates by them must be brought to a recognized court of law on land. That court can then hand down death sentences. The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that many of the nations in question have no death penalty and often have laws saying they cannot legally dump pirates in a country which has one because it would a ‘human rights’ violation. It’s a sickening display of the truth of international law in my opinion, but it is the law they operate on and it’s not going to change. That’s why many warships just don’t even bother; taking pirates to a proper court for a couple year prison sentence would take them off station too long to even be worth it. A dozen attacks would happen while they were busy steaming away and back.

We can only hope captains will be as aggressive as they can be and try to avoid giving the pirates a chance to surrender. The logical solution of putting a court on a warship is very unlikely to happen.

Speaking of the Dutch, they are now being criticized by the White House and Dutch lawmakers after the release of those pirates on Saturday.

AP, via Google:

Dutch navy under fire for 'idiotic' pirate release

By MIKE CORDER and SLOBODAN LEKIC – 8 hours ago

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch marines board a fishing boat and free two dozen Yemenis from Somali pirates. They seize and destroy AK-47s and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher but then put the nine bandits back in their skiff and set them free.

The Dutch government says its navy made a mistake, but Saturday's catch and release in the Gulf of Aden underscores confusion over what to do with captured pirates — and led to calls in Washington for tougher NATO action.

The Dutch marines were among a NATO flotilla that has helped fend off several pirate attacks in recent days in the crowded shipping lane off Somalia's coast; in each case the culprits were released amid questions over jurisdiction to arrest them.

That drew criticism from the Obama administration, which killed three Somali pirates and arrested one in the dramatic April 12 rescue of an American cargo ship's captain. The surviving pirate was arrested and sent to New York for trial.

Releasing pirates "sends the wrong signal," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after meeting her Dutch counterpart Maxime Verhagen in Washington on Monday. Both ministers said they would push for NATO to begin arresting pirates.

Both NATO and the European Union have multinational flotillas operating under a mandate from the U.N. Security Council which tasks them with escorting World Food Program ships and with patrolling the seas around the Horn of Africa. The mandate says nothing about how to treat captured pirates.

Angry Dutch lawmakers grilled the junior Defense Minister Jack de Vries on Tuesday about why a Dutch boarding party released the nine Somalis.

"We see piracy as a major problem but this weekend a Dutch ship detains pirates and then frees them," opposition lawmaker Ewout Irrgang said. "How can this happen? Do you agree that this is idiotic?"

De Vries admitted that Dutch prosecutors should have been consulted before the pirates were released.

"With hindsight, the commander contacted prosecutors too late," De Vries said. "It should have happened earlier."

Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the Dutch national prosecution service, said the pirates could "in principle" have been put on trial under Dutch law even though no Dutch citizens or ships were targeted by the pirates.

"I suspect that in the next case the Defense Ministry will try to make contact with prosecutors," before freeing piracy suspects, De Bruin said.

Piracy is the oldest international crime in Dutch law books and can be prosecuted regardless of where it happens and who is targeted.

The Netherlands has showed its willingness to prosecute piracy by agreeing to try five Somalis arrested in January by the Danish navy. The trial is expected to start next month.

NATO says any decision to arrest and prosecute suspects is up to its individual member states, not the alliance.

"When a ship which is part of the NATO force detains a person, the detention is a matter for the national authorities," said Shona Lowe, a spokeswoman for the NATO naval command in Northwood, Britain.

NATO first started patrolling the sea lanes off Somalia in late October after the United Nations appealed for protection for its food aid ships.

Its flotilla was replaced in December by an EU task force with a one-year mandate. A new NATO squadron arrived in the area last month. It is scheduled to leave soon for Southeast Asia where it will make a number of port calls before returning to the Horn of Africa.

The European Union recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Kenya, which allows its ships to land any captives in Kenya where they can be prosecuted under that country's legal system.

But NATO does not have the same agreement with Nairobi and — since it is a separate entity — any agreements between Kenya and the EU don't automatically apply to the NATO task force.

Officials say the problem is complicated by practical issues such as the massive size of the area being patrolled by a handful of warships: about 1.1 million sq. miles (3 million sq. kilometers), an area larger than the Mediterranean Sea.

Arresting pirates stretches the force even thinner as it can take several days to sail to and from Mombasa to drop off suspects, said a Western official involved with the anti-piracy effort.

The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, pointed to the French frigate Nivose, which is part of the EU mission.

Commandos aboard the warship arrested 11 pirates last Wednesday, and the frigate sailed for Mombasa to hand them over to authorities there. It has still not returned to the Gulf of Aden, he said.

Even so, the London-based International Maritime Bureau, an organization that fights crime linked to ships and their cargoes, said arrests would help snuff out piracy.

"It would be a much greater deterrent if (captured pirates) are handed over to authorities for prosecution," said Cyrus Mody of the bureau. "Returning them isn't solving anything ... it is in fact sending the wrong signals."

Slobodan Lekic reported from Brussels.

Ok, this is interesting. Considering the highlighted line above, it seems that the Dutch could have brought those guys in after all.