America.gov (Washington, DC)
Jacquelyn S. Porth
27 February 2009
Washington DC — Pirates that have been attacking ships off Africa no longer will have free rein because the international community is apprehending and prosecuting them.
Pirates increasingly are being captured -- sometimes caught in the act, other times spotted with incriminating evidence. Pirates can be prosecuted if they are seen boarding or if they are sailing with weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades. The Associated Press reports that unmanned aerial drones equipped with night-vision gear recently provided the evidence of pirate paraphernalia needed for the U.S. Navy to apprehend nine pirates in the Gulf of Aden on February 12.
When caught by patrolling navies, pirates are temporarily incarcerated in the hold of a ship, then transferred to a nation willing to prosecute in a court of law.
The threat of a lengthy court proceeding and a long prison sentence resulting from a successful prosecution will hopefully deter a slew of pirates who have been operating largely without consequence in the past year.
In 2008, there were 115 pirate attacks off the coast of Africa. There have been a dozen more attacks in 2009. And, an estimated 100 merchant ship crew members from countries including India, Greece, the Philippines and Ukraine still are being held hostage as a result of incidents in the past year.
But, in a sign of the times, France picked up some pirates on land in Somalia during a raid to free hostages in April 2008, and France is prosecuting the pirates.
Also, more recently, the Danish navy nabbed some pirates at sea and sent them to the Netherlands, where they are being tried and face a 12-year sentence if convicted.
Kenya is another country with experience prosecuting pirates and, under a recent agreement, will play an increased role in legal action against piracy.
International law defines piracy as any act of violence, detention or depredation conducted on the high seas from one vessel to another.
There are several relevant legal instruments: the 1958 Convention on the High Seas, the 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (signed by more than three-quarters of the world's nations) and the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention.
The French navy apprehended 19 pirates off the coast of Somalia in January.
But recent agreements are already making it even tougher for pirates. A group of African nations signed a regional code of conduct in Djibouti in January on the subject of piracy. Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, the Maldives, the Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania, Yemen and Djibouti were early signatories. The document, aimed at repressing armed robbery against ships off Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden, remains open for signature by all countries in the region.
Each signatory has agreed to review its legislation to be sure there are existing laws to criminalize piracy and related crimes as well as sufficient guidelines to investigate and prosecute.
Captain Charles Michel, chief of the Coast Guard's Office of Maritime and International Law, said countries interested in combating piracy must have the laws in place to prosecute and must be willing to see the prosecution through.
The United Nations recently passed two resolutions (numbers 1851 and 1846), which authorize actions against Somali pirates on land, as well as at sea. The resolutions are expected to spur further captures of pirates.
In the United States, the National Security Council, a high-level White House forum, issued a piracy action plan for the Horn of Africa just before the transition from the Bush to the Obama administration. The action plan focuses on preventing and responding to attacks and negotiating agreements leading to the prosecution of perpetrators.
Furthermore, the United States and Kenya signed a memorandum of understanding (as has Kenya and the United Kingdom) in January. Under its terms, the U.S. Navy can transfer captured pirates to Kenya for prosecution. Kenya may choose to prosecute or extradite the pirates (to the hostages' home country or to the country under which the captured ship sailed).
BUILDING A LEGAL CASE
Michel said the legal process can be daunting because so many parties may be involved in any one case: for example, Somali pirates, U.S. military personnel, Filipino crew and Kenyan judges. Legal experts also say that, for these new agreements on piracy to be effective, it will be critical for prosecutors to collect physical and video evidence that will be admissible in Kenyan courts.
According to Michel, the legal process can be excruciating. Even after detaining captured pirates, naval personnel must arrange to transfer the pirates to Kenya. Then the Kenyans have to figure out where to house them while building their case. Witnesses have to be assembled, depositions collected and all kinds of preparatory work completed before they can be tried.
The United States has agreed to help support future trials by transporting victims from attacked ships to Kenya or to supply as prosecution witnesses Navy and Coast Guard personnel who served on ship-boarding teams. The U.S. Coast Guard assigned law enforcement detachments to a Navy special task force to help collect and train ship-boarding team members in the best methods of collecting prosecutable evidence.
The U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service has a role too, with special agents assigned to Combined Task Force-151. They interview suspects and witnesses and coordinate with lawyers and foreign law enforcement agencies.
There is a strong international commitment to jail as many pirates as possible as a deterrent to others who would contemplate a life of crime on the high seas. Besides the nine pirates the Navy captured February 12, Michel said there is sufficient evidence to send another set of pirates apprehended a day earlier to Kenya for prosecution under the new bilateral agreement.
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