Region | Somalia
UN backs anti-pirate police for warships off Somalia
African and Arab police officers could be assigned to warships in Horn of Africa waters to try to seize Somali pirates and force them to face trial in the region, the United Nations crime-fighting agency said on Tuesday.
- Agencies
- Published: 19:02 December 16, 2008
Vienna: African and Arab police officers could be assigned to warships in Horn of Africa waters to try to seize Somali pirates and force them to face trial in the region, the United Nations crime-fighting agency said on Tuesday.
Scores of Somali pirate attacks this year have driven up shipping insurance costs, triggered millions of dollars in ransom payments and left about a dozen ships with nearly 300 hostages still in pirate hands.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime said police from Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania or Yemen could patrol waters off the coast of Somalia as "ship riders" and arrest pirates in the name of their country, increasing their chances of a trial.
"Pirates cannot be keel-hauled or forced to walk the plank, nor should they be dumped off the Somali coast. They need to be brought to justice," UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa said.
Police officers from the region could board foreign warships that have been actively hunting pirates or protecting the waters off the coast of Somalia, he said. The police could be given special legal status to arrest pirates if the countries that own the warships sign an accord with the officers' home countries.
The ship rider technique, already used to combat drug trafficking in the Caribbean, is more realistic than putting pirates on trial in their home country since Somalia's criminal justice system is in tatters, Costa said in a statement.
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