A young Somali captured in connection with the hijacking of a Spanish trawler and brought to Madrid has slipped into legal limbo, with courts unable to decide if he is an adult or a minor, and who should prosecute him, an official said.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Suspect Cabdiwell Cabdullahl - his nickname is Abdu Willy - and another Somali man were captured by Spanish naval forces in the Indian Ocean on 4 October, two days after the hijacking of the trawler Alakrana.
The two were caught leaving the ship in a skiff, and hiding under a blanket when Spanish marines approached it, according to Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon.
The trawler remains in control of pirates, and complicating things further are their reported demands for the release of their two detained colleagues as a condition for freeing the trawler and its 36-member crew.
After the duo's capture by forces on the Spanish navy frigate Canarias, Spain wanted to keep that ship close to the Alakrana to watch over it. So the Spanish navy got a French naval vessel to take the Somalis to a French air base in Djibouti, then flew them to Madrid.
Some relatives of Alakrana crew members complained that the government should have kept those arrests under wraps so as not to antagonise the pirates still holding the ship.
Now Cabdullahl's case has turned even messier because of doubts about his age, and thus whether he should be handled by the National Court per se or its juvenile section.
Cabdullahl has insisted he is a minor, which would entitle him to more lenient treatment if convicted of charges of kidnapping, criminal association and theft. Preliminary tests using X-rays to measure his wrist bones led authorities to rule he was in fact an adult.
But in a ruling Wednesday night, National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz said more exhaustive tests had been able to determine only that he is at least 17. Pedraz said that given this doubt, he had no choice but to release Cabdullahl.
The court's juvenile section intervened and had him sent to a shelter. The problem is that this section can only prosecute minors accused of terrorism, and Cabdullahl is not.
The idea emerged Wednesday night to transfer the case to the juvenile section of a Madrid regional court. But it quickly said it had no jurisdiction as Cabdullahl is not accused of committing a crime in Madrid, but rather outside Spain.
The Spanish newspaper El Pais called the case "a soap opera ... that seems to have no end."
Prosecutors at the National Court plan to appeal Wednesday against Pedraz's order releasing Cabdullahl, the court official said. They will apparently argue that the doubts over his age be overruled and that he be prosecuted as an adult, the official said.
Source: AP, Oct 21, 2009