MOGADISHU: US cargo ship Capt. Richard Phillips has been freed from captivity at the hands of Somali pirates in a dramatic ending to a five-day standoff with American naval forces, the US Navy said yesterday.
US television channel CNN said Phillips was freed unharmed and that the US military killed three of four pirates who had held him hostage on a lifeboat after trying to seize his vessel. It said a fourth pirate was in custody.
“I can tell you that he is free and that he is safe,” Navy Lt. Commander John Daniels said. He had no information on how the rescue happened or the physical condition of the captain of the US-flagged Maersk Alabama container ship.
Maersk said it received word of Phillips’ rescue from the US Navy at 1730 GMT and informed the jubilant crew of the Alabama. “We are all absolutely thrilled to learn that Richard is safe and will be reunited with his family,” Maersk Line chief executive John Reinhart said in a statement.
A senior US intelligence official said the man in custody had not been one of the pirates holding Phillips but was involved in negotiations to free him.
Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was safely transported to a Navy warship nearby where he underwent a health check.
A government official and others in Somalia with knowledge of the situation had reported hours earlier that negotiations for Phillips’ release had broken down. Talks to free him began Thursday with the captain of the USS Bainbridge talking to the pirates under instruction from FBI hostage negotiators on board the US destroyer. The pirates had threatened to kill Phillips if attacked.
Three US warships were within easy reach of the lifeboat on Saturday. The US Navy had assumed the pirates would try to get their hostage to shore, where they can hide him on Somalia’s lawless soil and be in a stronger position to negotiate a ransom.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, is reviewing evidence and considering whether to file criminal charges against the man captured.
Department spokesman Dean Boyd says prosecutors are looking at “evidence and other issues” to determine whether to bring a case in the United States. Phillips, 53, was the first American taken captive by Somali pirate gangs who have marauded in the busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean shipping lanes for years.
