Thursday, May 14, 2009

U.S. Navy detains 17 "suspected" pirates

I find it a bit amusing the news reports are now referring to pirates attacking ships off the coast of Somalia as "suspected pirates", or "alleged pirates".

Perhaps this is a run up to an international court to try pirates. It will surely work on the premise of innocent until proven guilty, hence the reference to suspected and alleged.

Anyway, back to the pirates news

The U.S. picked up 17 suspects after an Egyptian flag vessel, the Amira was fired upon.

The U.S. and Korea both sent helicopters after the pirates, apparently tracking them back to a "mothership".

The suspected pirates were brought onboard the USS Gettysburg for questioning.

We will have to follow this story to see what they do with these "suspected" pirates.
My hunch is they will send them to Kenya to be tried, unless perhaps Egypt would like them, as it was an Egyptian flag vessel.

Lloyds List is running a survey asking "Should an international court be set up to try alleged pirates". When I voted the tally was about 90 percent in favor.

I think something will have to be done. I don't really know what happened, as Kenya was to be set up to try the pirates from Somalia. But, I think that was before the administration change here in the U.S., so it probably got bogged down. Hilary must have other things on her plate.

Here is the article from the NY Post with more info on the latest "alleged pirates" activity,

Oh, and Iran is sending warships to fight the pirates.

One good thing about these pirates - it's giving all countries a common enemy.

1 comment:

Hans Moleman said...

I'm glad to see SOMEBODY noticing all this catch-and-release treatment of what was once called "the scourge of the seas."

I've been covering some of these stories on my website (www.mistermoleman.com), but otherwise they are going largely unremarked.