Friday, October 12, 2012
ROTTERDAM, Netherlands - A Dutch court has convicted nine Somali men of piracy and sentenced them to four-and-a-half years imprisonment after they were detained following a firefight with Dutch marines in April.
While it convicted the nine Somalis of piracy on Friday, Rotterdam District Court cleared them of the attempted murder of marines who arrested them aboard a hijacked Iranian fishing boat.
The judges ruled they could not be clear which of the pirates had opened fire on the marines.
The convictions were the latest in a Dutch court for pirates arrested by the Dutch navy patrolling the waters off Somalia as part of an international flotilla to protect merchant vessels preyed on by pirates.
Dutch judges convicted Somali pirates in 2010 and 2011.