Court cases point to problems in prosecuting pirates
A series of cases currently going through the courts in several countries point to the continuing problems in bringing successful prosecutions against alleged pirates.
A court in Mombasa, Kenya ordered the release of nine suspected Somali pirates on 9 November on the basis that Kenya could no longer try them for crimes committed outside its territory, following changes to the law under which they were being tried. The defendants had been arrested by naval personnel in the Gulf of Aden and handed over to Kenya.
Although Kenya had an agreement with the European Union to try suspected Somali pirates detained in the Gulf of Aden by the multinational naval taskforce, this expired at the end of September 2010 and not yet been renewed by the time of this trial.
The ruling follows the acquittal of 17 Somalis by the Mombasa court on 5 November. The defendants were arrested by naval personnel in May 2009 for allegedly attacking the Amira in the Gulf of Aden. They were freed after the court ruled that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
However, pirates have been successfully convicted in Seychelles for the first time. On 3 November, the court sentenced 11 Somalis to prison sentences of six years each for their role in the attack on the Spanish fishing vessel Intertuna 2 on 5 March 2010. The pirates had been arrested by the naval taskforce and taken to Seychelles for prosecution
In the USA, meanwhile, there has been some confusion about legal approaches to pirates who attack but do not succeed in boarding vessels.
A judge in Norfolk, Virginia ruled in September that six Somali defendants were not guilty of piracy, as they had not succeeded in hijacking the USS Ashland, but could be prosecuted for the lesser charge of attempted piracy. Now a ruling by another judge in Virginia has deemed that five Somali defendants should stand trial for piracy even though their attack on the USS Nicholas was unsuccessful. This judge held that the definition of piracy should refer to customary international law as well as US law, and that persons who fire on a US Navy frigate on the high seas can rightly be charged with piracy. The Ashland ruling is now going through an appeal process.
Source: ITF
