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Somali pirates keep Indian hostages despite ransom
NEW DELHI: The owners of a hijacked ship said on Saturday that they were perplexed by the continuing detention of some of their crew members by Somali pirates despite their paying a multimillion-dollar ransom.
All 15 crew members, held hostage after September's attack, were Indian, Sunil Puri, a New Delhi-based spokesman for Interglobal, a United Arab Emirates-based company that owns the ship, told the AP. On Friday, Hassan Farah said pirates in stronghold of Haradhere in Somalia had taken a collective decision not to release the Indian crew members. Puri called the pirates' action "unprecedented," and said that it wasn't immediately clear why the pirates acted as they did. "We are still trying to ascertain why that happened. We kept our side of the bargain. We don't know why they weren't released. This is an unprecedented situation. In the past they have always kept their word," Puri said. While Puri did not reveal the amount of ransom paid, pirates are receiving an average of $5 million to release ships and crew, and a ransom in that ballpark was believed to have been paid on Friday. The Indian navy has seized around 120 pirates, mostly from Somalia, over the past few months. Last month the Indian navy captured 61 pirates when they attacked a naval ship. Indian warships have been escorting merchant ships as part of international anti-piracy surveillance in the Indian Ocean area since 2008. Posted by: trailing wife 2011-04-17 |
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