A EU NAVFOR spokesman was unable to provide Sky News with a figure for how many suspected pirates had been returned to Somalia without charge.
“I don’t have the number for those returned to Somalia – a number of reasons but largely because it was not initially considered important to maintain the number,” the spokesman told Sky News. -Link to quote here.
This is the part of our global anti-piracy campaign that absolutely kills me. It’s as if these navies are sport fishermen, and they are releasing their catch so it can grow bigger, and spawn more fish, so they have more fish to ‘catch and release’ in the future.
Now of course we are dealing with the legal mechanisms, or lack there of, of each country that has laws that deal with piracy. So when a navy captures a pirate or suspected pirate, those navies are operating under the guidelines of those laws. Because these countries have not implemented sound anti-piracy laws, we unfortunately see pirates captured and then release because of some legal mistake or loophole. Or, those that did the arresting of the pirates did not capture and detain properly, or properly document or obtain witnesses, etc.
So who are the worst offenders of ‘catch and release’? That is a good question and I tried to do a little search for any comprehensive reports on this problem. Below, I have found a few recent articles on Canada and the UK, and their deficient legal mechanisms in place for prosecuting pirates. Here is a sample for the UK.
Fewer than one in every five suspects picked up around the Horn of Africa over the past four years have been prosecuted for piracy-related offences, the Ministry of Defence has admitted. The figures will fuel growing criticism of Britain’s involvement in the anti-piracy operation.
Official MoD figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday show the Royal Navy has boarded 34 vessels suspected of piracy in the Indian Ocean since volunteering to lead Operation Atalanta, the EU’s first naval mission, in 2008. However, on all but six occasions, the gangs rounded up were taken to the nearest beach and released – despite often being caught with equipment including guns and ladders. A list of boardings since November 2008 shows that the navy has detained a total of 279 likely pirates but allowed 229 of them to go free, some in groups of up to 17 at a time. Fifty more were sent on for prosecution in Kenya, the Seychelles or Italy.
Amazing. This is just insane, and this practice of catch and release must end. Also, I wanted to mention that all the nations involved have had similar catch and release stories, so the UK or Canada are not the only ones. I have been documenting this for awhile now, and it is very frustrating.
I also wanted to mention that we are missing opportunities of detention by not allowing private security companies to detain and arrest these pirates. Every engagement could turn into an arrest and a removal of these criminals off of the high seas. By issuing Letters of Marque to PSC’s or the captain on these boats, nations could give them the same arresting powers that their navies currently have.
Within the terms of the LoM, you can define exactly how arrests are to be done and the specific rules for detention and transportation of prisoners. A country can also offer bounties for each pirate that was legally detained and prosecuted. We have GPS and video filming capability, and these can all be tools required under the terms of the LoM in these modern times.
As it stands now, security companies are executing the ultimate in extreme justice on the high seas. That would be actually killing pirates during the defense. So the question I have is why is killing pirates more appropriate than detaining them? If anything, a security company should have the option of capturing those pirates instead of just killing them. It would also take a load off of the larger navies who are tasked with anti-piracy.
So why capture them alive? Well, for intelligence purposes, a pirate that is alive and talking, is far better than a dead one. Also, by capturing them, we take them out of the game. Of course killing them takes them out of the game permanently, but sometimes killing these pirates is not feasible within the course of current rules of engagement.
In one scenario, what if the pirates attacking the ship decided to stop their attack and just give up for whatever reason? Or during their attack, their engine fails and they get within killing range–so they raise their white flag right there. Does an armed guard execute these pirates who are trying to give up, or do they detain them? Or do we just let them go? And also, if that pirate vessel is no longer sea worthy because armed guards made it so, and now pirates are sinking, is there any obligation at all to save and detain those pirates? These are all questions that could be answered with an effective Letter of Marque regime and bounty program, that makes capturing pirates something of interest to security companies on these vessels.
I mention bounty, because even with a LoM, security companies will not be entirely motivated to detain. An effective bounty or reimbursement program would be necessary to make up for the costs of such an offense industry. You must also incentivize the process in order to create a vibrant offense industry. A company would be risking life and limb to go that extra mile to capture a pirate crew, so companies must have some mechanism in place for compensation.
So those are my thoughts on the whole thing. The laws dealing with piracy need to catch up, and we also must look at legal mechanisms that will help to make the elimination of piracy more efficient and effective. –Matt
Navy frees four out of five suspected Somali pirates
Britain criticised for ‘particularly poor record’ in international crackdown on Indian Ocean piracy
Brian Brady
Sunday, 8 April 2012
Hundreds of suspected pirates arrested by the Royal Navy off the coast of East Africa have been immediately set free – to continue threatening merchant vessels in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Fewer than one in every five suspects picked up around the Horn of Africa over the past four years have been prosecuted for piracy-related offences, the Ministry of Defence has admitted. The figures will fuel growing criticism of Britain’s involvement in the anti-piracy operation.
Official MoD figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday show the Royal Navy has boarded 34 vessels suspected of piracy in the Indian Ocean since volunteering to lead Operation Atalanta, the EU’s first naval mission, in 2008. However, on all but six occasions, the gangs rounded up were taken to the nearest beach and released – despite often being caught with equipment including guns and ladders. A list of boardings since November 2008 shows that the navy has detained a total of 279 likely pirates but allowed 229 of them to go free, some in groups of up to 17 at a time. Fifty more were sent on for prosecution in Kenya, the Seychelles or Italy.
The Government has acknowledged the “catch and release” strategy is often an “unsatisfactory outcome”, although ministers also maintain it helps to disrupt pirate networks.
But the shipping industry also condemned the Government’s failure to prosecute pirates caught “red-handed” attempting to grab a slice of an illicit trade believed to cost global commerce more than £7bn a year.
MPs have condemned the number of releases, which one British diplomat warned had given pirates “a sense of invulnerability”.
A report from the Foreign Affairs Select Committee complained that “gathering evidence to secure a successful prosecution for piracy is clearly challenging, but when pirates are observed in boats with guns, ladders and even hostages, it beggars belief that they cannot be prosecuted”. The MPs also insisted the strategy did not threaten the crucial “mother ships” from which gangs on smaller vessels operated.
The MoD figures are the most comprehensive account of the navy’s performance since Atalanta was launched amid escalating concerns over the hundreds of hijacks in the waters around Somalia.
Foreign Office advisers warned ministers that trying pirates in UK courts was “not desirable”, stating that “releasing the pirates on to a Somali beach after destruction of pirate boats/weapons/equipment is not attractive either in deterrence or presentational terms”.
European governments have spent the past few years attempting to encourage neighbouring states to try and imprison suspects. Kenya and the Seychelles in particular have received tens of millions of pounds to bolster their legal and prison systems. Britain has spent £9m – a quarter of all UN Indian Ocean counter-piracy funds – on improving prison facilities and legal expertise in the Seychelles, Somalia and Kenya. A British-built jail in the Seychelles currently houses almost 100 convicted pirates, guarded by British prison officers.
An international conference on Somalia, hosted by the UK earlier this year, identified the need “to bring suspects to trial in countries away from Somalia” as a key element of efforts to “crack down on piracy”. Ministers also sanctioned plans to allow ships to carry armed “sea marshals”.
A Foreign Office spokesman said last night: “We are also leading in establishing a maritime intelligence fusion centre for the Indian Ocean in the Seychelles, bringing together law enforcement officers to share information and develop action against pirate financiers and leaders.”
But the Baltic Exchange claimed the UK had “a particularly poor record” in handling suspects. A statement to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry declared: “The UK has gained a degree of notoriety within the international shipping community for its failure to prosecute those caught red-handed in the act of piracy.
“Once captured, pirates caught by UK forces are widely perceived simply to receive sustenance and medical assistance before being returned to the mainland unmolested.”
Story here.
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Navy must still ‘catch and release’ Somali pirates
No clear international jurisdiction over pirate detainees from East African waters
Jan 24, 2012
The Harper government has wanted the navy to play a bigger role in battling Somali pirates in the waters off East Africa, but has been stymied about what to do with potential prisoners, documents reveal.
The international effort to contain the pirating of commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aden and beyond is something Canada “strongly supports” and it provides the perfect, low-risk venue for the country to showcase its military ability.
A series of briefing notes, obtained by The Canadian Press under Access to Information from Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s office and the chief of maritime staff, show the eagerness over the last two years to take on a renewed mission.
But the enthusiasm is tempered by the reality that once caught, there’s no place to try pirates.
“While international law provides that any state may take jurisdiction over piracy in international water, counter-piracy efforts off the coast of Somalia continue to be hampered by a lack of authority in domestic laws, as well as by questions concerning jurisdiction over apprehended individuals suspected of piracy and related crimes,” said Nov. 3, 2010 memo to Robert Fonberg, the deputy defence minister.
Aside from the legalities, there is also a hard political reality.
Canada’s land forces grappled with the politically-explosive detainee controversy during the Afghanistan combat mission.
The last time a Canadian warship captured pirates in April 2009, it was forced to release them because of the jurisdictional void.
Documents show the government was chastened and federal bureaucrats struggled to address what they termed the “catch-and-release conundrum” of Somali pirates.
Vice-Admiral Paul Maddison, the head of the Royal Canadian Navy, said the problem has yet to be solved.
“Different nations are doing different things here,” he said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press. “And I don’t think we’re going to see a burning desire for an international consensus on a new international legal regime in terms of detention.”
That may be a bit of an understatement.
The nations doing most of the pirate-hunting thought they had it figured out in 2010 when a series of countries signed agreements with Kenya, Somalia’s neighbour in the Horn of Africa, to prosecute captured pirates.
Canada’s deal was signed on January 12, 2010. It allowed for the transfer of prisoners and prosecution under Kenyan law, but less than three months later, the country backed out.
Similar arrangements with China, Denmark, the European Union and the U.S. also collapsed. The problem was Kenyan courts were flooded with suspects and that strained its justice system.
The international community has tried to persuade Kenya to reconsider, without much success. Canadian officials say they might be able to deal with the Republic of Mauritius, a tiny island nation east of Madagascar.
In the run-up to the agreement with Kenya, Canada contributed $740,000 to a United Nations program that helped build a new court to try pirates in its Indian Ocean port city of Mombassa.
Since 2008, Canada has sent six warships to the region and even took a turn commanding the international flotilla that runs the mission.
Maddison said it is important that the international community not let the issue slide.
“My concern is that folks around the world will observe what they have seen … in the Somali basin, and see this as an opportunity for illegal activity,” he said.
The United States has begun bringing captured pirates before its courts, but there is no indication the Harper government is prepared to go down that road, especially since it would almost certainly extend Canadian constitutional protections to the foreign prisoners.
A March 2010 briefing note from the chief of defence staff shows there has been active discussion about deploying a CP-140 Aurora patrol plane to aid in surveillance of suspected ships and the commercial vessels they prey upon.
The navy’s internal debate about legal status has been more intense and precise, according to a briefing given to Maddison’s predecessor, retired vice-admiral Dean McFadden.
“Pirates are not combatants — they cannot be lawfully targeted,” said undated 2010 slide presentation called Achieving Maritime Effect.
“Counter-piracy operations are therefore not combat operations. They are law enforcement type operations.”
The briefing emphasized the need for evidence collection when a pirates are detained. For now, navy orders are to conduct disruption, which means gathering information on suspects, destroying weapons, equipment and ladders.
Story here.
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Failure to prosecute pirates beggars belief, say MPs as it’s revealed 90% of all suspects are freed without trial
-Nine out of ten piracy suspects detained by Royal Navy and other maritime forces are released without trial
By Ian Drury?5 January 2012
Britain’s failure to prosecute Somali pirates who attack ships, seize hostages and demand huge ransoms ‘beggars belief’, a withering Parliamentary report said today.
Nine out of ten piracy suspects detained by the Royal Navy and other maritime forces in the Gulf of Aden or Indian Ocean are released without trial, according to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
Not one pirate has been brought to the UK for prosecution, even though 20 other countries – including the U.S., France, Germany and Belgium – had placed nearly 1,000 suspects on trial.
Most of the time armed bandits who prey on merchant ships off the volatile Horn of Africa are returned to their boats and freed.
Ministers claim it is difficult to gather suitable evidence because pirates often threw weapons and other equipment into the sea when spotted by anti-piracy patrols.
But the committee said the Navy should use photographs or video recordings to build a case against armed pirates.
The report, published today said: ‘Gathering evidence to secure a successful prosecution for piracy is challenging.
‘However, not all claims made by the Government about the difficulty in securing evidence were wholly convincing: when pirates are observed in boats with guns, ladders and even hostages, it beggars belief that they cannot be prosecuted.
‘Simply returning suspected pirates to their boats or to land, while it may temporarily disrupt their activities, provides little long term deterrence and has demonstrably failed to prevent an annual increases in both the number of pirates going to sea and in the number of attacks.’
MPs on the cross-party committee launched their probe into piracy off the coast of Africa after a British couple were kidnapped by Somali pirates.
Paul and Rachel Chandler, originally from Kent but now living in Devon, were seized from their yacht Lynn Rival near the Seychelles in 2009 and held in Somalia for a year, and released only after a ransom of up to £620,000 was reportedly paid.
Seven of the pirates who allegedly held them hostage are currently being tried in Kenya for an attack on a French ship, and could then be extradited for trial in the UK.
But despite the Metropolitan Police possessing ‘ample’ evidence the British Government is still ‘negotiating jurisdiction’, the report says.
The failure to prosecute pirates drew stinging criticism from seafaring organisations.
The London-based Chamber of Shipping trade association told the committee: ‘The repeated images of pirates being released without trial by naval forces, including the Royal Navy, causes understandable derision.’
And the Baltic Exchange, another maritime association based in London, said: ‘The UK has gained a degree of notoriety within the international shipping community for its failure to prosecute those caught red-handed in the act of piracy.
‘Once captured, pirates caught by UK forces are widely perceived simply to receive sustenance and medical assistance before being returned to the mainland unmolested.’
The Government said the Royal Navy had transferred 28 pirates to other countries, including Kenya and the Seychelles, for prosecution since 2009.
It had released 60 suspects held during boarding operations between April 2010 and November 2011.
The 72-page report said the ‘plague’ of piracy was a ‘major concern’ that threatened the UK’s economy and security.
The number of Somali pirate attacks has soared from 55 in 2007 to 219 in 2010.
In that period some 3,500 seafarers have been held hostage, with 62 killed.
And between January and March last year (2011) there was an all-time high 97 attacks by pirates against merchant ships – more than 1 a day.
Experts estimate there are 3,000 pirates operating from war-torn Somalia who attack commercial vessels from small skiffs or larger ‘motherships’ using AK47 automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
Last year ransom payments hit a record $135million (£86.5million) in 2011.
The global cost of piracy is as much as $12billion (£7.5billion).?Up to 200 vessels flying the red ensign – the British merchant navy flag – regularly sail close to Somalia.
In October, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that Britain would lift the ban on armed guards being deployed on its merchant fleet.
Branding piracy a ‘stain on our world’, he said security guards would have permission to ‘shoot to kill’ pirates attacking vessels for their valuable cargos and crews.
The Foreign Affairs Committee welcomed the move but urged the Government to clarify when it is legal for British-flagged ships to shoot dead Somali pirates.
It also raised the possibility of military personnel being placed on commercial vessels to protect them from pirates.
Richard Ottaway, the committee’s Tory chairman, said: ‘The question anyone would ask is that if a private armed guard on board a UK-flagged vessel sees an armed skiff approaching at high speed, can the guard open fire?
‘The Government must provide clearer direction on what is permissible and what is not.
‘It is unacceptable that 2.6 million square miles of the Indian Ocean has become a no-go area for small vessels, and a dangerous one for commercial shipping.
‘There is a clear need to take decisive action.’
The committee also called on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to review its procedures for dealing with British captives’ families after the Chandlers criticised the department’s support during their 13-month ordeal as being limited to ‘tea and sympathy’.
Story here.