Pirate suspects flown to US for court hearing
Eleven suspected pirates were being flown to the United States to stand trial in alleged attacks on US naval vessels off the coast of Africa, officials said.
The suspects were expected to appear in court in Norfolk, Virginia, for indictment as early as this morning, two US officials said.
The 11 were held on US ships for weeks off Somalia’s pirate-infested coast and nearby regions as officials worked to determine whether and where they could be prosecuted and prepare legal charges against them.
The suspects were taken from the USS Nassau amphibious assault ship yesterday, handed over to US law enforcement officials and were being flown to Virginia on a government plane in the custody of the Justice Department, one official said.
The transfer of the case to a US court comes amid discussions about setting up a special international court to try piracy suspects, because a number of countries will not act against suspected pirates who are turned over to them.
Some pirates were released after capture because no nation could be found to try them.
The question of piracy prosecutions is part of a broader US policy debate over how to deal with the long-lawless nation of Somalia, which has been without a government since 1991 and has become a haven for al Qaida-linked terrorists who control most of the country.
Off the coast of the violence-racked nation, millions of dollars in ransom are demanded and won by young men travelling in skiffs, armed with AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades and sometimes hopped up on the narcotic plant called qat that is popular with Somalis.
Five of those en route to Virginia on Thursday were captured on March 31, after the frigate USS Nicholas exchanged fire with a suspected pirate vessel west of the Seychelles Islands, sinking a skiff and confiscating its mother ship.
The other six suspects were captured after they allegedly began shooting at the amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland on April 10 about 380 miles off Djibouti, a small nation facing Yemen at the mouth of the Red Sea.
