Nato and Dutch officials said an attack on a Greek-owned ship
from the Marshall Islands, the Handytankers Magic, had failed but
the nine suspected pirates had to be freed after being briefly
detained.
'This morning we intercepted a request for assistance from ...
the Handytankers Magic, that had fallen victim to a pirate attack,'
Lieutenant Commander Alexandre Fernandes told AFP from aboard the
Portuguese frigate Corte Real, which is under the Nato flag.
'We immediately dispatched a Dutch Nato ship.' A Dutch defence
ministry spokesman said the attack on the tanker had been launched
from a dhow, a traditional Arab sail boat, captured by pirates last
Thursday.
The pirates fled back to the dhow in small boats after the
failed tanker attack, but a British naval vessel in the vicinity
intervened and kept its guns trained on the group until Dutch
marines arrived under Nato orders to board.
The Dutch frigate, part of a Nato anti-piracy patrol operation,
Allied Protector, had been escorting four merchant vessels some 10
miles away.
'The marines found 25 people on board (of the dhow), nine of
them suspected pirates,' spokesman Robin Middel told AFP. They also
found seven AK47 assault rifles and a rocket launcher, which were
seized and destroyed.
'The other people on the dhow were Yemeni fishermen who were
hijacked by the suspected pirates.' Mr Middel said the suspects had
to be freed on the instructions of a Nato squadron commander.
'There exists no legal framework in the Nato for arrests to be
carried out,' he explained. The suspects were put back in their
boat, and the freed fishermen sent on their way back home.
Belgium meanwhile confirmed a ship belonging to the Jan de Nul
group, which specialises in building artificial islands, had sent
distress signals early Saturday and been captured about 150
kilometres north of the Seychelles. -- AFP
They just release the pirates back to their boat. No arrest or
trial or anything. that doesn't sound right.
Well, the Strait Times today did mention why, apparently no
country wish to be responsible for feeding/clothing/persecuting
them. Not their citizens after all.
Plus if anyone tried to persecute the pirates themselves, the
other navies will dump all their prisoners on them.
