The question on many people’s lips is why do warships keep catching and releasing pirates?
A simple enough question, but according to a report in Lloyd’s List the Combined Maritime Forces, which patrols international waters with a mission that includes tackling piracy, is not going to tell us.
The question on many people’s lips is why do warships keep catching and releasing pirates?
A simple enough question, but according to a report in Lloyd’s List the Combined Maritime Forces, which patrols international waters with a mission that includes tackling piracy, is not going to tell us.
LL reporter Michelle Wiese Bockmann claims to have experienced a series of “increasingly farcical email and telephone exchanges” on this matter with Combined Task Force personnel, but without ever coming closer to a reason for the ongoing release of pirates.
The convenient catch all phrase is that the military does not have the legal grounds to detain them. But this is because, according to Intertanko (in a private letter to LL), is because they are not interpreting international piracy laws properly.
“The often rehearsed excuse that international law requires pirates to be caught in the act of an attack as a condition for prosecution has no basis in international law,” said the letter, which provided a reasonably thorough examination of the clauses Intertanko thought the military had got wrong.
Given this, it seems only right that the media should look to the military for either answers or justification. Sadly, though, it seems neither are forthcoming.
Are we crazy for wanting to know? Is INTERTANKO wrong or has the military been barking up the wrong tree? Or is this a deliberate and convenient ploy to avoid bringing pirates for trial in the UK?
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