And they are slow-stepping it.
"Somali pirates appeal US conviction; Attorneys argue 5 didn’t board ship" September 21, 2011|By Steve Szkotak, Associated Press
RICHMOND - Attorneys seeking to overturn the first piracy conviction in a US courtroom in nearly 200 years told a federal appeals panel yesterday that the actions of five Somali men who attacked a Navy warship in waters off Africa did not meet the legal definition of pirates because they did not board the ship or rob it.
Related: Pirate Patrol: Somali Double Standard
But the government countered that their violent actions clearly fell within widely accepted international and US law defining piracy....
Maybe the Somali pirates should have flown an Israeli flag.
The Nicholas, which was part of an international flotilla combating piracy in the seas off Africa, was mistaken by the defendants for a merchant ship because the Navy used a lighting array to disguise the 453-foot warship and attract pirates....
It's amazing to me how the world's navies can't stop a bunch of guys in skiffs. It's almost as if the pirates were being protected by someone.
The Nicholas ruling could have an impact beyond that case. Last August, a judge in Norfolk dismissed piracy counts against five defendants accused in an attack on another Navy ship, the USS Ashland. The judge concluded that since the men had not taken control or robbed the ship their actions did not rise to the nearly 200-year-old Supreme Court definition of piracy. In the April 10 attack on the Ashland, a 610-foot dock landing ship, the ship’s 25mm cannons destroyed a skiff, killing one Somali man and injuring several others.
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Related: 2 Somali hijackers get life in prison
Somali pirates get life in Americans’ killing
Time to send a message in a bottle.
"Note in bottle helps foil pirate hijacking" October 12, 2011|Associated Press
ROME - British and US forces freed an Italian cargo ship hijacked by Somali pirates in a dramatic rescue yesterday after retrieving a message in a bottle tossed by hostages from a porthole alerting ships nearby that the crew was safely sealed inside an armored area.
All 23 crew members of the Montecristo cargo ship were brought to safety, the Italian Foreign Ministry said. The 11 pirates were taken into custody.
The crew - seven Italians, six Ukrainians, and 10 Indians - locked themselves inside an armored area of the vessel when the pirates boarded the ship Monday, Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said. Safe from the pirates’ threats, the crew continued to navigate the ship....
The pirates attacked the ship Monday 620 miles off Somalia, as the crew was hauling scrap iron to Vietnam on a journey that had begun Sept. 20 in Liverpool, England....
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Globe hasn't found it yet.
