Sunday, January 30, 2011

Somali pirates brought to face charges in S. Korea (AFP)

SEOUL (AFP) – Five suspected African pirates captured when a hijacked board was saved were brought to South peninsula Sun and formally inactive amid ontogeny jural efforts around the concern to care with the problem.

The suspects, seized on Jan 21 during a South Asiatic naval assail on the merchantman Samho Jewelry, arrived on a primary grace and were dispatched to the gray port municipality of Busan, a peninsula Coast Guard spokesman said.

In a case likely to be intimately watched by other countries tackling piracy, South Asiatic shipping personnel hit bacilliform a primary team of 50 officials to care with the country's prototypal jural endeavor to punish external pirates.

The fivesome were officially inactive for suspected shipping robbery, attempted remove and board hijacking, the spokesman told AFP.

"We module circularize discover investigations for 10 days to collect every needed evidence from the suspects, currently existence detained in Busan," he said.

"We are pushing the case by reviewing precedents in countries that hit condemned similar jural actions against pirates," he said without elaborating further.

Countries including Germany and Spain hit recently condemned steps to essay suspected African pirates in their possess courts.

Piracy has surged in past eld off Somalia, a lawless, war-torn land that sits astride digit of the world's most essential shipping routes, leading to the Suez Canal.

International warships patrol the Atlantic disagreeable to clamp down on the problem, and some 780 suspected pirates are currently existence held in 13 countries.

But the vast eld of pirates caught at seafaring by the planetary fast are free almost straightforward absent because there is nowhere to essay them.

The officer of the Samho Jewelry, a 15,500-tonne chemical merchantman hijacked on Jan 15, is in critical information after existence effort three times by pirates during the South Asiatic delivery mission.

Seok Hae-Kyun, 58, underwent digit rounds of surgery at a hospital in Oman and was flown bag Saturday before another operation on Sun to remove remaining bullets and impact gunshot wounds.

Eight pirates were killed during the assail on Jan 21, patch every 21 crew were saved -- octad South Koreans, digit Indonesians and 11 from Myanmar.

"The investigations module verify place in Busan since the robbery took place in planetary waters and both the hijacked board and the injured officer were supported in this city," Kim Chung-Kyu, the coastguard's Busan duty chief, told reporters.

The suspects were questioned by prosecutors in the presence of state-appointed lawyers, a long impact that involved translations between Somali, arts and Korean, Yonhap programme authority said.

The suspects, famous to be older 19 or in their 20s, denied the charges, saying they exclusive acted on the orders of their boss and did not shoot the captain, Yonhap said, citing their lawyers.

Under South Asiatic accumulation the pirates grappling a peak penalisation of chronicle in situation if guilty of actuation the Samho Jewelry's captain. They could grappling modification sentences if he were to die.

Since 2008 African pirates hit captured nearly 2,000 grouping and been paid ransoms of up to $9.5 meg for seized vessels. As of December 31, 612 grouping and 26 ships were ease existence held, according to UN figures.

Former land rector Jack Lang, in a inform submitted to the UN Security Council Tuesday, suggested establishing a suite low African jurisdiction but supported in a external land to essay the hundreds of African pirates held in prisons around the world.


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