Pirates are still proving a problem
April 26, 2011
A 6,500 teu containership owned by Hanjin managed to escape a pirate attack late last week, while another group of captured pirates has been released without prosecution.
On 21 April at around 5am Korean time, Hanjin lost contact with the 6,500teu Hanjin Tianjin after it came under attack by pirates in the Indian Ocean, near the Gulf of Aden.
Hanjin later re-established contact after the ship and its crew of 20 (14 Koreans and six Indonesians) were rescued by the Korean warship, Choi Young.
“We have been informed that the pirates were not found at the scene,” Hanjin said. “There was some damage done to the ship.
“Our crew stopped the engine to hold the ship and hid in the citadel [panic room] to protect themselves from the pirates.”
The attack happened 400km east of Socotra. The Hanjin Tianjin operates on the NE5 service that plys the Asia-Europe trade.
On the same day, the European Union Navy Force (EU NavFor), part of international naval efforts to help reduce the number of pirate attacks, admitted it had been forced to release a group of captured pirates.
The pirates had been detained on the Finnish warship Pohjanmaa since 6 April, but were released after requests for action by a number of states considered to have an interest in the case proved unsuccessful.
The countries either decided not to prosecute or could not provide an intent to prosecute within the required timescale.
EU Navfor pointed out that once suspected pirates are detained, it has no authority to prosecute them and has to seek a state willing to prosecute them.
According to article 105 of the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea, the state that seized the suspected pirates has the right to prosecute them. If this state doesn’t want to prosecute the suspected pirates, others will be asked to consider the case.
In general, the flag state of the attacked or pirated vessel is the next to be contacted. Others that could be asked to prosecute are countries from where the crew or shipping line originate. EU Navfor will also contact states with which it has an agreement to accept piracy cases.
The suspected pirates were detained after attacking the Singapore-flagged Pacific Opal on 5 April. They were returned to Somalia on the morning of 21 April.
