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Attackers of Russian tanker released in open sea
Published: 07 May, 2010, 10:39
Edited: 17 May, 2010, 06:51
TAGS: Crime, Africa, Russia, Piracy
The Russian Navy has had to release 10 Somalis, captured earlier in an operation to rescue a seized tanker. There was no legal way to prosecute them for piracy.
The move is a result of “the imperfection of the international legal territory,” explained spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Colonel Aleksey Kuznetsov.
The detainees had been disarmed by Russian marines, transported into their own speedboat and left to their own devices. An hour later, the boat was no longer detected by the destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov, which performed the rescue operation.
Earlier on Thursday Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the lack of an international legal agreement on how to prosecute Somali pirates undermined the effort to eradicate piracy in the region.
Two boats boarded the tanker Moskovsky Universitet on Wednesday, as it was transporting 86 tonnes of crude oil along the coast of Somalia. Russian crew members send a distress call and barricaded themselves in the engine room, shutting down all the machinery.
Click to enlarge
Several hours later, the Russian Navy ship Marshal Shaposhnikov arrived, after receiving exact co-ordinates from an Australian reconnaissance plane. In a 22-minute-long night operation, marines boarded the drifting tanker, killing one of the attackers and detaining 10 others. Another group of pirates managed to escape in one of the two boats.
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I don't understand it. Russian ship, Russian crew, boarding by armed pirates. Russia can't find a law to prosecute them? The U.S. had no problem charging the Somali pirates it captured. The pirates should easily be convicted under Russian law. Before too long they would find themselves on a winter work gang 10 km east of Norilsk, in the best Russian tradition. David Brown Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
The legal problems with setting up proper international courts to try Somali pirates can be traced back to the early blunders made in the UNSC resolutions on Somali pirates sponsored by the Bush administration. The U.S under GWB was not concerned with international law of Maritimes but with narrow geopolitics of militarising the Horn of Africa. the U.S aim-which continues with the Obama administration- was/is the militarization of the Horn of Africa. Whereas internal stability of Somalia is the only feasible way to secure the India Ocean waters in and off Somalia, the U.S does not support stabilising Somalia because continue instability in the country- including continuation of piracy- provide for the U.S and its allies the perfect opportunity to increase militarization of the Horn of Africa. Thus, in this way the U.S war on piracy merges with the U.S war on terror. Russia needs to take a leading role in setting up new legal regimes that can deal with piracy and the restoration of the internal security of Somalia. Until Somalia is secured and peace is brought to the country, piracy will remain to be a problem. Since 1991 fall of central authority in Somalia, the only moment when sea piracy ceased to be a problem was in the 2006 during the rule of the Union of the Islamic Court. The U.S did not like the UIC so it sponsored the overthrow of the Courts. Piracy returned with the U.S sponsored warlord regime and with the U.S mercenary firms such as TopCAT and the Ethiopian military and Africom.
Who is this > crowd... do they work for Rupert Murdoch or is it a branch of CNN. http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=International&articleid=a1273776014 What a lot of hogwash, read this blatant propaganda... Its like saying... its not rape because I was making love, I know she didn't like it, so I promise to do it better next time. Or, if you hungry, you can rob a bank on wall street, and if you promise not to hurt anyone, we'll understand. If it were my ship, I'd explain my interpretation of the law of the sea to these pirates, which is simply... you touch my ship, heaven will come sooner, than later. I'd shoot them on the spot and you know what I think, I wouldn't be killing one Somali fisherman, mercenaries that work for the mafia, yes, but not one fisherman. Here's an idea, lets just let Goldman Sachs put up a Toll-Booth at the horn of Africa... that will make the pirates happy. I'd love to have the balance sheet these pirates have, its almost enough to bail out wall street... how much have they taken already, a billion? If they were poor little fisherman, not anymore, they now live in the same suburb as Bill Gates.