France launches probe into pirate hostage's death

Paris: France launched a judicial probe on Saturday after Defence Minister Herve Morin hinted that French commandos might inadvertently have been responsible for a hostage's death during a deadly release operation off Somalia.

The move came as Somali pirates holding a US captain hostage warned yesterday that using force to free him would end in "disaster" while they prepared to move him following the French raid on a separate boat on Friday.

"There will be a judicial inquiry and therefore an autopsy. One cannot exclude that during the exchange of fire between the pirates and commandos the shot was French," Morin told Europe 1 radio a day after French forces freed four hostages aboard the yacht.

But the fifth hostage, the yacht's owner Florent Lemacon, was killed in the operation, along with two of the pirates. Three other pirates were taken prisoner. The four ex-hostages, Lemacon's wife Chloe, their three-year-old son Colin and two other adults - were due in Paris on Saturday.

Off the Somali coasts, pirate commander Abdi Garad said the American captive would be moved from the lifeboat where he was being held.

Only four pirates have been guarding Captain Richard Phillips on the lifeboat, and transferring him to a larger ship could give them better defences as the US military seeks to free him.