Washington: Most Somali pirates captured
in the Indian Ocean end up being released without facing
justice, UN envoy Jack Lang has said.
"Nine out of 10 pirates captured by marines are freed,
despite efforts by many states to have a single jurisdiction"
for piracy trials, said Lang, the special piracy envoy of the
United Nations yesterday.
"This impunity encourages piracy," he hold a group of
journalists in Washington.
Lang is set to release a report on the subject on
Monday to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
An estimated 1,200 seamen were taken hostage by
pirates in 2010 in the Indian Ocean, a record.
Lang was expected to offer a series of proposal to
help bring pirates to justice under international law. He said
he hopes for a UN resolution on the subject in three to four
weeks.
Dozens of warships from navies around the world now
patrol shipping lanes off Somalia`s coast and into the Gulf of
Aden. But a recent UN report said that piracy has been on the
rise.
Some 700 suspected and convicted pirates are now in
detention in 12 countries, more than half of them in Somalia,
according to Yury Fedotov, executive director of the UN Office
on Drugs and Crime (UNODOC).
Somalia has had no central government since a civil
war erupted with the 1991 overthrow of former president
Mohamed Siad Barre, and an al Qaeda supported Islamist militia
is battling transitional leaders for power.
PTI
