Feral Jundi

This is great news and I hope they can establish a few other places to prosecute these guys. We must square away the legal process for dealing with pirates, and end this stupid ‘catch and release’ game we keep playing. I also think that we should put these pirates to work once they are convicted.

I am sure there are quite a few boats in these navies that are doing the job out there that need their hulls cleaned, and a bunch of former pirates scraping barnacles off of those ships all day long, year after year, would be a great use for that prisoner resource. Do something with them, because they definitely need to pay back society for taking the path that they have taken. Plus, these navies wouldn’t probably mind hanging out in the Seychelles for a bit (and diving…), while their boat gets worked on. –Matt

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Seychelles to Establish Regional Court to Prosecute Pirates

Michael Onyiego

06 May 2010

In an effort to combat piracy off of the East African coast, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime and the government of the Seychelles have announced the establishment of a regional center to prosecute suspected pirates on the tiny island nation.The establishment of the center will allow the European Union Naval Force Somalia, which patrols the Gulf of Aden, to transfer captured pirates to the Seychelles for prosecution. This is the second such institution of its kind, the first residing in Kenya. In addition to U.N. support, the new center will receive funding from the European Union, Australia, Canada and Germany aimed at strengthening the nation’s jurisdictional and procedural capacity to prosecute pirates arrested in the region.The European Union Naval Force Somalia and the Vienna-based U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime already operates a counter-piracy program based in the Seychelles which will train and assist the nation’s coast guard, police and prison officials to properly receive and detain suspects.Piracy has become a large problem for the small nation over the past year. Increased international patrols in piracy hot spots around East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula have forced pirates to operate farther afield. In March, Somali pirates hijacked a ship near Indian waters, more than 1,600 kilometers off the Somali coast, and pirates now regularly prey on shipping lanes near the Seychelles.The Seychelles began prosecuting piracy in March, when 11 pirates were arrested off its coast with assistance of the European Union. A further 11 pirates were transferred to Seychelles authorities after being captured by the French Navy near Somalia the same week.The country has amended its criminal code to allow its courts to prosecute suspected pirates under universal jurisdiction, and many hope the new institution will ease the burden currently placed on Kenya.But a Horn of Africa analyst for London-based think tank Chatham House, Roger Middleton, says the nation’s capacity is too small to solve the problem.”It is so tiny. It has got two courtrooms in the whole country and something incredible like 100 capacity in all of its prisons. It is really tiny, so it is only going to be able to deal with a very small amount of the pirates that are captured,” said Middleton. “There is a huge shortfall and western countries still do not want to take pirates home to deal with them, so they are going to have to find somebody else or other way of get them prosecuted. There are a lot of pirates out there, and no enormous amount of space to send them.”Pirates captured in the region are supposed to be prosecuted in Kenya. The government has separately agreed with the US, EU, Britain, Canada, Denmark and China to accept Somali pirates but in March the country refused to take any more, arguing that the burden should be equally shared among the international community.