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Somali pirates extradited to Germany

Published: 14 Apr 10 16:44 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100414-26543.html

The Somali pirates who recently captured a Hamburg freight ship are being extradited to Germany for what is expected to be the first trial of such pirates from the collapsed African nation on German soil.

The 10 men were put on a Dutch military plane on Wednesday in the African country of Djibouti and are bound for The Hague, where they will remain in custody until they are handed over to German justice officials, a spokesman for the Dutch Defence Ministry said.

They were captured by Dutch naval commandos on Easter Monday following a shoot-out aboard container ship The Taipan, which they had seized in waters about 900 kilometres off the Somali coast.

One Dutch marine was injured in the shoot-out. The 15-member crew, who had barricaded themselves into a section of the ship, were unharmed.

Wilhelm Möllers, a spokesman for Hamburg’s state prosecution office, confirmed that Germany was pursuing extradition for what would be the first case against Somali pirates tried in Germany.

A Hamburg court approved an arrest warrant for the pirates at the beginning of this week.

The Taipan belongs to Hamburg-based shipping company Komrowski.

The Dutch navy launched the operation as part of an EU naval mission called Operation Atalanta which protects shipping along the key route off Somalia.

EU Navfor has said that in March it collared 18 pirate gangs, destroyed 22 skiffs and apprehended some 131 pirates for prosecution.

But there are still eight vessels and 157 hostages in the hands of Somali pirates, an official said on March 31.

DPA/The Local (news@thelocal.de)

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Your comments about this article:

17:41 April 14, 2010 by Hebbellover
How about we make an example of them? Put them on German welfare, give them all of the socialist trimmings of a western european democracy....that should work!
17:45 April 14, 2010 by Portnoy
Ah, let 'em go. The pirates are one of the few good additions to the post-911 world.
18:04 April 14, 2010 by slawek
Finally a fortunate turn in their (most likely) miserable lives. If lucky they may even have access to a swimming pool. Of course there will also be regular food and choice between vegetarian and non-pork, etc. And if they spend enough time in jail they might even come out with a Ph.D.

I'm not so sure the extradition is such a good idea. It's rather strange.
18:13 April 14, 2010 by twisted
I don't understand why they aren't just hung from the yardarm or make to walk the plank in shark-infested waters... It seems to work before....Oh, I forgot, this is the enlightened age...Let's spend lots of money making them prisoners, especially in Germany, where they will be released after a couple of weeks in jail....Justice, be served.
19:09 April 14, 2010 by Frenemy
anyone here know anything about the relationship between Dutch section of Op.Atalanta and US SOCOM in Lemonier? ...I bet radio traffic is amusing as hell!! ( ..."blauwe kracht" tracking must be a hoot!! haha!) :-)
20:02 April 14, 2010 by whatzup
Its clear that the industrial shipping nations are reticent to go after the pirates in an effective way because the campaign to do that might deteriorate into a bigger political problem. So guys like those featured in this article largely get a free pass to harass shipping and extract money from their victims and know exactly why they are allowed to continue to tweak the tail of the tiger with little relative risk.
20:28 April 14, 2010 by Frenemy
I don't follow...how will protecting the shipping interests of your own corporations (and others) "deteriorate into a bigger political problem"?

[I mean, if it were up to me sonic weaponry would be OEM and blasting anyone withing a certain distance would be STOP....]
22:20 April 14, 2010 by cocovelvet
Just put them in front of a firing squad... they are useless idiots anyway.

Or else send them out to Afghanistan and dress them up in one of the allied forces army uniform and leave them somewhere in a taliban-infested area..... they will sort them out !!
22:28 April 14, 2010 by cobalisk
I applaud Germany for proactively seeking extradition and pressing for a trial in the German courts.

This commando 'kill em at sea' mentality is little more than cinematic wish-fulfillment. The Geneva convention dictates that these persons are not enemy combatants and thus subject to civilian justice. Killing them at sea or arresting them and then executing them flies in the face of almost every international agreement that exists.

Thank you to Germany for respecting the Geneva conventions and being a positive force for justice. Everyone deserves a trial, that's why Germany is a Republic people.
23:02 April 14, 2010 by Hebbellover
@ cobalisk Geneva Conventions? MMMM, I think you need to read the real version.

"Traditionally pirates were considered ?"illegitimate hostiles?" subject to summary execution by whoever captured them."

So now we have the touchy feely so called "justice" which either ignores them or pussy foots around with them.
23:02 April 14, 2010 by Prufrock2010
Maybe Germany never received the Cheney memo.
01:41 April 15, 2010 by Frenemy
@cocovelvet:

Nah, the British have the monopoly on playing dress up as the enemy in the Middle East. (actually I've grown to finding it rather endearing)
06:33 April 15, 2010 by Der Grenadier aus Aachen
Gahhh. Mistake. Just cruise around their base of operations a few times until you have everyone's attention through the binoculars, and then shoot them in the head, on deck, in full few.

They'll get the general idea.
07:23 April 15, 2010 by joesjungle
Personally I think their ships should be sunk at sea with them on it. But in reality these guys still have ships and hostages. To kill them in front of their comrades would invite them to start killing their hostages.

The real problem is what happens when these guys hijack another ship full of weapons? Or worse yet hijack a North Korean or Iranian ship full of undocumented weapons and then decide to turn it around and sell it to someone else.
08:12 April 15, 2010 by berlinski
Make them work in a call centre for minimum wage for the rest of their lives. That will send out a message to their colleagues in Somalia.
10:52 April 15, 2010 by Frenemy
@derGrenadier:

lol, reminds me of a South Park episode (...s13e07 to be exact) ;-)
15:08 April 15, 2010 by Der Grenadier aus Aachen
@joesjungle

Trust me; they consider the hostages far more valuable than a couple of their footsoldiers.

In all seriousness, we need to just start sinking the bastards with crew on board, instead of boarding them. No quarter to pirates. It's not a new or revolutionary position.
11:35 July 21, 2010 by Cornelia Praetorius
How positively fascist most of your comments are. Wonderous that one of you remembered dimly that something like the Geneva Conventions exist, or even law of your one contry. Trust me, it is not the African who causes the gravest problems in this world but the white man - has he ever reached - sporadically! - any level of civilization, which he so generously 'shares' with the rest of world like Irak, Vietnam, Afghanistan and all the destabilised countries he exploits to the last drop? Colonisation and recolonisation heavily at work.

He solves the amount of World Poverty favourably by diminishing the number of poor with a multitude of 'tools' and 'means' - mean bastard that he is.
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