Russia, Soft on Pirates? Lets Pirates Go...

[M.Dancer]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/somalia-rips-russian-navy-for-casting-captured-pirates-adrift/article1568683/

Russian forces last week stormed a hijacked oil tanker in a rescue operation that killed one pirate. Russia said 10 others arrested were later set loose aboard one of the small vessels they used in the attack.

A military official said they were stripped of their weapons and navigation equipment. Russian media later quoted a military source saying the pirates were now likely dead.

“You cannot expect people to make it ashore without navigation equipment,” Deborah Akoth Osiro, a Nairobi-based legal expert, told Reuters.

“If they were actually set adrift with insufficient supply, at a range of 300 nautical miles from the shore, then Russia once again failed in its positive duty to prevent foreseeable loss of life,” she said.

How hard could it be? It's not like Africa is a small island in the south pacific....Go west you pirate, you can't miss it...

[Shady]

The pirates didn't get lost, certain members of the Russian military made them "disappear." I gotta say, I think it's a new anti-pirate doctrine that every country should apply.

Just a guess, but me thinks that pirates may just let Russian tankers sail by in the future.

[Guest TrueMetis]

So, what happened to trials?

[Oleg Bach]

With sovietization - secularization of Russia and the killing of any good resisters - seventy years later all that is left are crooks - The new Russian high archy are Pirates..do you expect pirates to not be loyal to other pirates?

[August1991]

I prefer the BBC report of the Russian account of this affair:

They were released in an inflatable boat without navigational equipment.

Within an hour, contact was lost with the boat's radio beacon, the defence source said.

"It seems that they all died," the unnamed source was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency.

Russia initially said the 10 pirates would be taken to Moscow to face criminal charges over the hijacking, but they were released instead because there were not sufficient legal grounds to detain them, the defence ministry in Moscow said.

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which Russia is a signatory, gives sovereign nations the right to seize and prosecute pirates.

BBC

----

I bet Somali pirates will soon check whether a ship is Russian registered, and I also bet that Russian cargo companies will soon charge higher prices for transport by the horn of Africa.

[Bonam]

Seems like a good way to deal with pirates.

[eyeball]

The Navfor spokesman suggested the loss of navigational equipment would not necessarily be critical if there was an experienced mariner among the 10 men on the boat.

Experienced mariners would matter even less if they'd also been left without a motor or oars or a sail or food or water...with insufficient supply in other words. I wonder what else would have prompted the defense source in Moscow has to tell reporters "It seems that they all died," other than some sense that this was probably the case?

Stooping to the level of pirates is just plain ignorant. It's no better than handing over detainees for torture. Laughing either off is surely a sign of some sort of deep psychopathy.

[August1991]

Stooping to the level of pirates is just plain ignorant.

Ignorant?

We in the West have learned that pragmatism is a good God. We call it the Scientific Method.

Edited May 15, 2010 by August1991

[Argus]

Stooping to the level of pirates is just plain ignorant. It's no better than handing over detainees for torture. Laughing either off is surely a sign of some sort of deep psychopathy.

They didn't make them walk the plank. They gave them a rubber dinghy and left it to Allah to decide their fates. Apparently, Allah made His decision.

[bloodyminded]

They didn't make them walk the plank. They gave them a rubber dinghy and left it to Allah to decide their fates. Apparently, Allah made His decision.

There is no Allah. If they died, it was because they were extrajudicially murdered by the human beings who are bafflingly being supported here.

[bloodyminded]

Ignorant?

We in the West have learned that pragmatism is a good God. We call it the Scientific Method.

I know...trials and the like are just liberal hand-wringing. Pragmatism tells us that we should be able to kill "bad guys" ourselves, using our own sober judgement.

That's the "scientific method."

Edited May 15, 2010 by bloodyminded

[Shady]

The pirates got what they deserved. Perhaps if more nations delt with them in this manner, word would spread, and piracy in that region would become less of a problem.

[eyeball]

The pirates got what they deserved. Perhaps if more nations delt with them in this manner, word would spread, and piracy in that region would become less of a problem.

They deserved a trial. What I expect will happen is that word will spread that more nations and people like ours could care less if law and order go by the wayside.

But then I suspect coastal Somali's already know that by now.

Off the lawless coast of Somalia, questions of who is pirating who

In the early 1990s, for example, Somalia's unpatrolled waters became a cost-free dumping ground for industrial waste from Europe. Fishing boats from Italy were reported to have ferried barrels of toxic materials to Somalia's shores and then returned home laden with illicit catches of fish. Rusting containers of hazardous waste washed up on Somali beaches as recently as 2005, after a powerful tsunami roared through.

"It's almost like a resource swap," said Peter Lehr, a Somalia piracy expert at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the editor of "Violence at Sea: Piracy in the Age of Global Terrorism." "Somalis collect up to $100 million a year from pirate ransoms off their coasts. And the Europeans and Asians poach around $300 million a year in fish from Somali waters."

Source

Like a resource swap? It's more like shrinking water hole. When it gets smaller the animals get meaner. We've seen the future and much of it will be Somali in nature. Much of the blame for that rests with nations that preach law and order.

[bloodyminded]

They deserved a trial. What I expect will happen is that word will spread that more nations and people like ours could care less if law and order go by the wayside.

But then I suspect coastal Somali's already know that by now.

Source

Like a resource swap? It's more like shrinking water hole. When it gets smaller the animals get meaner. We've seen the future and much of it will be Somali in nature. Much of the blame for that rests with nations that preach law and order.

I guess, according to the logic imposed here, that the Somalis have a right to deal with these Western pirates....extrajudicially.

[eyeball]

I guess, according to the logic imposed here, that the Somalis have a right to deal with these Western pirates....extrajudicially.

What other choice do they have, wait until some do-gooder nation lives up to its responsibility to protect?

[ToadBrother]

There is no Allah. If they died, it was because they were extrajudicially murdered by the human beings who are bafflingly being supported here.

Won't anybody cry a tear for the pirates?!?!?!

[ToadBrother]

I guess, according to the logic imposed here, that the Somalis have a right to deal with these Western pirates....extrajudicially.

What will happen is that the Somali pirates will avoid Russian ships in the region.

Read up on the Barbary Pirates. There ultimately is only one way to deal with piracy.

[GostHacked]

Russia is signatory to a treaty that essentially states that if Russia captures pirates they have some options. Bring them home for trial, or simply release them. Terms of release are granted by the party who captured them. They could have just been easily killed by the Russian troops as they boarded the ship and call it self defense or something of that nature.

[M.Dancer]

So, what happened to trials?

All navies conduct sea trials to determine the worthiness of their craft....this was the somali version.