Court tells France to pay damages to Somali pirates
by Sail-World Cruising on 6 Dec 2014
Somali pirates MarEx
The BBC hasc reported that the European Court of Human Rights has found that France violated the rights of Somali pirates who had attacked French ships and has ordered compensation for them over judicial delays.
Some of the pirates seized the 290-foot luxury yacht Le Ponant in the Gulf of Aden, taking hostage 30 people, including 22 French nationals. Others were involved in hijacking the second vessel, a 50-foot sailboat. French commandos retook both vessels in separate raids, months apart, after ransoms amounting to about $2 million were paid in each incident.
The nine Somali pirates should get thousands of Euros because they were not immediately brought before a French judge, the court ruled.
One is to get 9,000 Euros (£7,000) and the others sums of up to 7,000 Euros.
The judges faulted France for keeping them in custody for an extra 48 hours.
The pirates had held French citizens hostage after seizing a French-flagged cruise ship and a French yacht in 2008.
The French military captured the pirates on the Somali coast in two operations, after the hostages had been released for ransoms of $2.1m (£1.3m) and $2m.
Before transferring the pirates to France, the authorities held one group for four days and the others for six days and 16 hours.
But the extra 48 hours of custody on French soil violated the pirates' right to liberty and security under the European Convention on Human Rights, the court ruled.
The convention's Article 5.3 'was not designed to give the authorities the opportunity to intensify their investigations for the purpose of bringing formal charges against the suspects', a court statement said.
Court judgements are binding on signatories to the convention.
The judges did not challenge France's right to arrest the pirates inside Somali territory, under UN anti-piracy rules.
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