Monday, June 01, 2009
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP)--The French navy on Monday handed over four suspected pirates, two of them dead, to Somalia's northern breakaway region of Puntland, officials said.
Puntland officials said the two were killed by the Indian navy during an attempt to attack a Norwegian-owned Liberian registered vessel with 10 Indian crew in the Gulf of Aden last Thursday.
"The French navy handed over four pirates over to the local authority this morning. Two of them are dead and were killed during operations carried out by the Indian navy off the coast of Somalia," Muse Yusuf Gele, a governor of Bari region in Puntland said.
Puntland's Security Minister Abdullahi Said Samatar told reporters: "The French troops brought two dead bodies of Somali pirates. Two others were arrested alive."
The Indian navy said last week its naval ship had responded to a distress call from the MV Maud after it reported a small boat carrying eight armed people approaching it at high speed.
The warship's helicopter fired warning shots at the pirates attempting to board the vessel and two of them fell into the water, it said.
But Samatar said: "As far as we know, the men fought and they were shot dead. They died as the result of gunfire."
"The two living pirates were sent to jail and awaiting trial, while the dead were buried in Bossaso," Gele said, adding that two others who were injured in the same encounter had been sent to Djibouti for treatment.
According to Ecoterra International, an environmentalist group that monitors piracy and other illegal marine activities in the region, the French navy took over to "mop up" from the Indian navy to allow it to safely escort three merchant ships through the Gulf of Aden.
The Indian warship was patrolling the region as part of an international anti- piracy drive in the lawless waters off Somalia.
Piracy watchdogs say there have been 114 attempted hijackings so far this year, compared with 111 during the whole of 2008.
Source: AFP, June 01, 2009