Thursday, April 15, 2010
The pirates who were captured by the French navy last week in Somali waters were handed over to Puntland authorities in a ceremony held at the port city of Bosasso, about 1505 kilometers northeast of the capital Mogadishu.
Regional security minister said that although his government announced last month that it will not receive a single pirate again, the policy has been changed due to the growing co-operation with foreign naval forces participating in the anti-pirates operation off the lawless coast of Somalia.
“They demanded to be transferred to Puntland government instead of being taken to Yemen, Kenya or Seychelles and we have accepted them to be arrested and tried here,” the security minister added during a press conference at the port of Bosasso.
Currently, there are over two hundred buccaneers in the Puntland custodies after they were arrested by the foreign navies off the Somali coast or in the Gulf of Aden as they were trying to hijack ships traveling in the high seas.
Puntland is relatively calm in accordance with the troubled south-central Somalia, but the region is the hotbed of notorious buccaneers, drug-dealers, human traffickers and other criminals
Source: APA