December 16, 2008: On December 13th, the
Indian warship, INS Mysore, interrupted a pirate attack on a merchant ship,
tracked the speedboats back to their mother ship, and captured it and 23
pirates (12 Somalis and 11 Yemenis) along with weapons, communications and GPS
gear. The incident occurred 250 kilometers east of the Yemeni port of Aden. The
Mysore was 25 kilometers away from the merchant ship when they got the distress
call. The Mysore promptly dispatched its helicopter, which chased the two
pirate speed boats away and found the mother ship. The Mysore rushed to the
scene, and sent commandos to capture the mother ship,
Since all this happened in
international waters, there is a problem with finding a country that will
accept, and prosecute, the pirates. The Indian Foreign Ministry is working on
that, and may be doing so for a while. Since World War II, national and
international laws for dealing with pirates (which used to mean trying and
executing the pirates on the spot) have been discarded. But nothing took the
place of those procedures, because it was believed that piracy was no longer a
problem.
Some nations working the anti-piracy
patrol, have signed deals with Kenya, which sends pirates captured off the
Somali coast, to Kenyan courts for prosecution. These deals provide cash to
help defer the costs of prosecution and incarceration, which would otherwise be
a burden for a poor nation like Kenya.
