Holiday hell as pirates attack couple, kill husband

11:34 PM Wed 25 Mar 2009 GMT

'The couple had been traveling the globe for years, but struck trouble off the coast of Thailand.' .

A British couple has endured a harrowing and fatal encounter with pirates who ransacked their boat, named Mr Bean, off the coast of Thailand.

Linda Robertson, 57, has described her ordeal from her hospital bed as she recovers from the experience, telling how she was required to show the pirates operate the boat and how one her captors repeatedly apologised as she was 'trussed up naked like a chicken'.

Mrs Robertson's husband, Malcolm, 64, is missing, believed dead after he was attacked with a hammer, had his throat slit, and was thrown into the water. His body is yet to be found.

The couple had been sailing around the world since 1998 before being attacked on Monday in the Malacca Strait, a body of water notorious for piracy, running between mainland South-East Asia and Indonesia.

Mrs Robertson told the London Evening Standard she heard the pirates - three teenage Burmese migrant workers - climb aboard the boat and then scuffle with her husband.

'I heard a scuffle and did not hear any more. They came back to me and made signs to me to start the engine, which I did,' she said.

'There was no sign of my husband. I waited and listened and I think this was the first time I realised he might be dead.

'First they wanted to know how the fuel system worked, and I showed them. They did not know where the switches were.

'But as I walked through the boat I realised I was walking through the blood of my husband.'

Mrs Roberston said she asked her captors, via gestures, if they planned to kill her too but they made signs to say they wouldn't.

While she admitted her own experience was 'degrading', when you are faced by the threat of dying, 'all such matters become secondary', she explained.

After the pirates left on a rubber dinghy, Mrs Robertson said she steered her yacht towards some fishing boats.

'I pulled Mr Bean alongside one of the boats. I jumped off my boat onto the fishing boat. I would not go back to my boat. I did not want to feel Malcolm's blood on my feet.'

Police soon arrested the pirates and said the men were Burmese migrant workers who had been working with a local fishing fleet, Mrs Robertson said.

Police have charged the trio with aggravated assault and illegal migrant worker status, but will only charge them with murder if Mr Robertson's body is found, Sky News said.

Mrs Robertson's brother, John Clee, described the robbery at sea as 'a stupid, pathetic thing, because they were just trying to pinch a few credit cards and computer things'.

Violent pirate attacks are common in Thailand but often go unreported, according to intelligence analyst, Graeme Gibbon-Brooks who says the fatal attack on Mr and Mrs Robertson is not unusual for the area.

He said: "Piracy is a crime of opportunism so a slow-moving yacht that isn't expecting to be robbed would be an attractive target. Attacks like this are probably reasonably common but the majority of them are on local fishermen and often go unreported. What is most shocking is the level of violence, but that is not uncommon for this area."

He said figures released by the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) showed the three main areas which suffer pirate attacks are Nigeria, the Horn of Africa and south-east Asia.

More at www.icc-ccs.org/

by Jeni Bone

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Holiday hell as pirates attack couple, kill husband

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