MOGADISHU, 6 February 2006 — Ten suspected Somali pirates being held in Kenya could be charged in India, at the US Navy base at Guatanamo Bay, or in Kenya, the Daily Nation said.
US Ambassador to Kenya William Bellamy said they could be charged in Kenya because it is nearest to where they were arrested. They could also be taken to India, the envoy said, because the ship they were said to have attacked belongs to the country, or Guatanamo Bay because they were seized by US forces.
“It would be in order to charge them in any of the three countries,” he said after visiting Mombasa Mayor Taib Ali Taib. But he said Kenya was best placed to deal with the case because, he argued, it had been under a piracy threat for some time.
On Tuesday, the director of public prosecutions, Keriako Tobiko, suggested that the suspects be charged in Kenya, arguing that the courts could apply the Penal Code.
The Somalis, who were arrested after allegedly hijacking a ship, were expected to appear before a Mombasa court on Friday, but this did not happen.
Bellamy also disclosed that the vessel was not seaworthy and there were plans to take it to the nearest port for safety when it was commandeered. He said rescue was as a result of a distress call that attracted the US Navy patrolling the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, four Vietnamese sailors held hostage in Somalia have been released after their Taiwanese employers agreed to pay ransom to the Somali rebels, reports said.
The Taiwanese announced that the four Vietnamese sailors on a Taiwanese vessel were freed on Jan 27, according to the head of the Vietnamese Labour Management in Taiwan. The Vietnamese sailors were among a 48-man crew from China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam on three Taiwanese fishing vessels which have been held hostage by anti-government rebels in Somalia since last August.
Somalia’s Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said he would participate in the National Assembly session on Feb. 26. The Parliament speaker announced last week that the gathering would be held in southwestern town of Baidoa.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister Seyoum Mesfin and Somali Prime Minister Gedi had held discussions in Addis Ababa on bilateral and regional issues. Seyoum said in brief statement he gave after the talks that he and Ali had also exchanged views on ways of strengthening the Transitional Government of Somalia set up two years ago.
The Somali prime minister said that his country had signed cooperation agreements with Kenya, Djibouti and Yemen.
About 1.7 million people in the northern, central and southern regions of Somalia are facing an acute food and livelihood crisis, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) has said.
“At least 1.4 million Somalis are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian agencies should employ a ‘twin-track’ approach that addresses both the immediate and medium-term needs of vulnerable Somali populations in order to prevent the creation of relief-dependent communities. If the focus is only addressing immediate needs — whole livelihood systems could degenerate into relief-reliant communities, deepening poverty and prolonging the humanitarian crisis,” FSAU said in its latest report.
FSAU said Somali authorities, civil society and humanitarian sectors urgently needed to step up intervention to prevent a large-scale disaster.
It urged donors to ensure that relief agencies had sufficient funding to carry out their work and noted that the Somali diaspora — through remittances — could play a key role in mitigating the crisis.
The agency further emphasized that the regional nature of the drought — which extends to neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya — called for a regional approach to the crisis.
