What do you do with a captured pirate?

11:10 PM Sat 30 May 2009 GMT

'What do you do with a captured pirate?' .

As navies from around the world confront Somali gangs off the Horn of Africa, a small legal issue is turning into a major problem for the mission and the governments involved: what do you do with the captured pirates?

'Has it been given a lot of thought? I don't think so. If it had, the legal aspect would have been considered more thoroughly,' said Timothee Phelizon, a lawyer whose Somali client, Ismael, is held in a French jail.

Ismael and five other Somali men are accused of attacking a French yacht and holding its crew hostage in April 2008, as has been well reported. The skipper of the yacht Tanit Florent Lema?on was killed by friendly fire when French commandos attacked the hijacked yacht. Phelizon said four of them had nothing to do with the hijacking, and would have to be released without charge.

The Tanit incident - .. .

'It's a very political case. Because if in the end there are only two people who will be put on trial, then there are four who will have spent a year in France behind bars. And they can demand compensation and a parliamentary inquiry into why four innocent people spent 12 months behind bars,' he told Reuters.

France holds 15 Somali pirates who were caught during or after attacks on French crews.

Phelizon argues they cannot be sent back as other pirates will suspect them of having divulged secrets to the French. He expects them to claim asylum here.

Others have been shipped to Mombasa. The EU struck a deal with Kenya in March over suspects seized by its 'Operation Atalanta', and has since then transferred more than 50 men.

The United States in January expanded an older deal with Kenya. Like France, it still decided to tackle the issue itself when its national interests were at stake -- a Somali teenager, the sole surviving accused pirate from an attack on US container ship Maersk Alabama in April, was indicted in the United States on ten counts in May.

NATO, which is also operating in the area, is scrambling to hammer out a deal after it was publicly rebuked by the United States for freeing captives.

Military sources told Reuters that the initial confusion was frustrating for them. Officials have cheered the Kenya deal.

'For us, it's a blessing that we have this rule, that we have a place where we can drop them off,' an Atalanta spokesman said.

However, there is already one German lawsuit challenging the Kenyan arrangement. Some lawyers say governments have thrown themselves into a legal experiment that lays them open to compensation claims and raises questions about the maritime operation itself.

...and despite everyone from Russia to India to the United States patrolling the Gulf of Aden and Somalia's east coast, pirates continue to do their business.

by Defence Web/Sail-World