News: Danes Land Pirates For Trial In Kenya

Danish warship HDMS Esbern Snare of the NATO counter piracy force docked in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Sunday, carrying 24 suspected Somali pirates to be handed over to Kenya for trial. Kenyan police boarded the vessel and are believed to be gathering testimony and evidence from the Danes. The pirates were handed over under cover of darkness, and journalists waiting on the dock were prevented from gaining access to the quay side by a wall of empty containers.

Esbern Snare (Source: Danish Govt)

The pirates were seized when the Esbern Snare freed an Iranian dhow being used as a mothership, freeing 16 hostages and killing four pirates in the firefight. Ten of the pirates were injured in the operation, and Kenyan police had to help several wearing bandages and plastercasts into waiting vans. The suspects are expected to be arraigned in a Mombasa court on Monday.

Sources close to the shipping agents said that Kenya had earlier been unwilling to take the pirates, forcing the Esbern Snare to head back out into international waters, before a deal was struck that allowed the pirates to be handed over.

Kenya was reluctant to be the ' dumping place’ for pirates as legal bottlenecks combined with high cost of prosecutions became unbearable. Kenya had in the past been the venue of choice for prosecuting suspected pirates, but changed its stance when the government said the hosting and prosecution of the suspected Somali pirates arrested in the Indian Ocean had been left to Kenya alone, thus exposing the country to several security threats [lower courts have now been allowed to try piracy cases - OCEANUSLive].

More than 80 suspected Somali pirates are imprisoned in Kenya. Ten of those are serving seven years each. Close to 80 suspects, excluding the expected 24 new arrivals, are either being tried or awaiting trial in Mombasa.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defines piracy as a universal crime and gives states the right to seize and prosecute pirates. Experts say that several countries do not know how to domesticate the convention into their own jurisdiction.