Oil tanker liberated

[Ret10Echo]

Russian special forces storm oil tanker, free ship
By KATHARINE HOURELD
Associated Press Writer

Russian special forces rappelled onto a disabled oil tanker taken over by Somali pirates, freeing 23 Russian sailors and arresting the pirates during a dawn raid Thursday, the commander of the EU Naval Force said.

The raid against the Liberian-flagged ship Moscow University came 24 hours after pirates had taken the ship over and the crew locked itself in a safe room. The vessel is carrying 86,000 tons of crude oil worth about $50 million.

The special forces had been aboard the Russian anti-submarine destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov, which rushed to the scene after Wednesday's attack. The special forces boarded a helicopter and rappelled down to the Moscow University, Rear Adm. Jan Thornqvist, force commander of the EU Naval Force, told The Associated Press.

Shots were fired during the raid but no one was injured, Thornqvist said.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Alexei Kuznetsov said the pirates are being held aboard the tanker. Russian news agencies reported the death of one pirate during the raid, but Kuznetsov told AP that information was still being looked into.

The crew of the Moscow University had previously told officials they believed the pirates were trying to enter the engine room, Thornqvist said. The ship had been disabled and was not moving. Safe rooms, where crews seek shelter, are typically stocked with food, water and communications equipment and have reinforced doors that can only be opened from the inside.

The ship's owner, Novoship, said in a statement that the decision to free the ship was made knowing "that the crew was under safe cover inaccessible to the pirates and that the lives and health of the sailors was not threatened by anything."

Cmdr. John Harbour, a spokesman for the EU Naval Force, called the rescue "an excellent operation all around." He said the EU Naval Force had been working at a tactical level with the Russians, and that EU Naval Force personnel talked to the Russian crew by VHF radio. He said the EU had offered support to the Russians.

The attack occurred about 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of the Somali coast. The ship was not registered with the Maritime Security Center, said Harbour. The ship's route was from the Red Sea to China, the ship's owner said.

Novoship is a subsidiary of Sovcomflot, which is owned by the Russian government.

The fact that Russian special forces stormed the Moscow University shortly after it was taken over is in line with a trend by international military forces who are more aggressively combating piracy.

In February, Danish special forces prevented the hijacking of a ship after pirates had boarded it. Special forces from the Danish Absalon boarded the Ariella while the crew locked themselves in a secure room.

EU Naval Force ships are disrupting pirate groups and destroying their ships at a much higher rate than in previous years. U.S. warships have fired back on pirates and destroyed their boats in several skirmishes in the last several weeks.

Pirates currently hold more than 300 hostages taken from ships attacked off East Africa in the last several months. Eleven suspected Somali pirates were indicted in U.S. federal court late last month, but the international community has had problems formulating an accepted policy to try and jail pirate suspects.

Along with the increased pressure by international navies against pirates has come some criticism.

On Wednesday, a French prosecutor said a French rescuer was responsible for killing the skipper of a sailboat hijacked by Somali pirates during a rescue operation.

Chief prosecutor Hever Pavy in the western French city of Rennes said investigators found a French military bullet had killed Florent Lemacon in April 2009 when a special intervention team came to rescue his yacht, the Tanit, off the Somali coast.

Four other hostages were saved after a week on the hijacked ship. Three suspected pirates who survived the rescue operation are on trial in France.

___

Associated Press reporters Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Kenya and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.

[Don]

Originally Posted by Ret10Echo

Russian special forces storm oil tanker, free ship
By KATHARINE HOURELD
Associated Press Writer

Russian special forces rappelled onto a disabled oil tanker taken over by Somali pirates, freeing 23 Russian sailors and arresting the pirates during a dawn raid Thursday, the commander of the EU Naval Force said. [snip]

Gone are the good old days of gassing a building, then storming in and laying waste to the joint (see "We'll work up a Number 6 on 'em" from Blazing Saddles). Looks like even dear old Ivan is on board with police duties.

[Richard]

Gone are the good old days of gassing a building, then storming in and laying waste to the joint...

Just wait until they have another hostage situation in one of their former '-stan' republics.

Richard's $.02

[Utah Bob]

Originally Posted by Richard

Just wait until they have another hostage situation in one of their former '-stan' republics.

Richard's $.02

The ex-republics....well now, that's a whole other kettle of borscht..

[Wiseman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=258Ia...layer_embedded

Someone on militaryphotos.net gave link to a youtube showing the detention of Somali pirates last year by Russian forces and subsequent destruction of "fishing" ship.

[SparseCandy]

The russian government is now saying they set the pirates free:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100507/...e_eu/eu_piracy

MOSCOW – The pirates seized by a Russian warship off the coast of Somalia have been released because of "imperfections" in international law, the Defense Ministry said Friday, a claim that sparked skepticism — and even suspicion the pirates might have been killed.

Authorities initially said the pirates would be brought to Russia to face criminal charges for hijacking a Russian oil tanker. But Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Alexei Kuznetsov told The Associated Press on Friday that the pirates had been released.

Kuznetsov declined to elaborate on the purported legal flaws that prompted the release and it was unclear how the seizure of the tanker might be legally different from last year's alleged hijacking of the Russian-crewed freighter Arctic Sea.

That vessel allegedly was seized by pirates in the Baltic Sea off Sweden and went missing for several days before a Russian warship tracked it down off West Africa. The eight alleged pirates were flown to Moscow to face eventual trial.

The Law of the Seas Convention, to which Russia is a signatory, says the courts of a country that seizes a pirated vessel on the high seas have the right to decide what penalties will be imposed.

But what to do with pirates has become a murky problem. Some countries are wary of hauling in pirates for trial for fear of being saddled with them after they serve prison terms, and some propose that pirates taken to Kenya for trial.

Kuznetsov appeared to echo those concerns when asked why the pirates who seized the tanker were released.

"Why should we feed some pirates?" he asked. He did not give specifics of the pirates' release, but the official news agency ITAR-Tass quoted a ministry source as saying they were "sent home," unarmed and without navigational devices, in the small boats they had used to approach the tanker.

Their home, presumably, was Somalia, a chaotic and lawless country where pirates are almost certain to avoid any formal prosecution.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had hinted Thursday at tough punishment for the pirates, saying "perhaps we should get back to the idea of establishing an international court and other legal tools" to prosecute pirates. "Until then, we'll have to do what our forefathers did when they met the pirates," he said.

Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the Russian online Marine Bulletin, said the release strained credulity and instead sparked suspicion the pirates had all been killed

"There is no more stupid version than the one that has been proposed to us — that there was no sense in dealing with the pirates and that in Russia there are no suitable laws for convicting them," he wrote.

"If the pirates really were let go, it should have been done in the presence of journalists. If the pirates were killed, a heroic version would have to be thought up," Voitenko said.

The pirates boarded the tanker Moscow University on Wednesday. They were arrested Thursday after special forces from a Russian warship stormed the tanker. A gunbattle ensued in which one pirate was killed; 10 others were arrested.

The warship opened with warning fire from large-caliber machine guns and a 30mm artillery complex, the Russian Defense Ministry said. Special forces troops then rappelled down to the tanker from a helicopter, Rear Adm. Jan Thornqvist, the European Union Naval Force commander, told an Associated Press reporter aboard the Swedish warship Carlskrona, which was patrolling 500 miles (800 kilometers) west of the rescue site.

The tanker's 23 crew members, who had taken refuge in a safe room, were not injured.

Suspected pirates from other cases are in custody and awaiting trial in France, the Netherlands and the United States.

Several countries are calling for piracy cases to be prosecuted in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa. The United States, Britain and European Union have signed agreements allowing piracy suspects to be handed over to Kenya for trial.

But there are doubts that Kenya — which is still recovering from postelection turmoil in 2007 that left more than 1,000 people dead — would be able to handle the costly and complicated task of trying all or even most cases that emerge from the exploding piracy crisis in the Indian Ocean.

[Crue]

Originally Posted by SparseCandy

The russian government is now saying they set the pirates free:

...they were "sent home," unarmed and without navigational devices, in the small boats they had used to approach the tanker...

[/I]

Hopefully they also were given few holes below the water line before they were set adrift.

[incarcerated]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...atestheadlines

Freed Pirates May Have Drowned

AFRICA NEWS
MAY 11, 2010, 11:31 A.M. ET
By SARAH CHILDRESS in Nairobi, Kenya, ABDINASIR MOHAMED in Mogadishu, Somalia and GREG WHITE in Moscow
Ten Pirates released from a Russian warship 300 miles out to sea may have drowned, according to Russian officials and colleagues of the pirates, raising fears of retaliation against other vessels plying East African waters.

The pirates were captured last week after they hijacked the Moscow University, a Liberian-flagged, Russian-operated oil tanker sailing off the Somali coast. A Russian warship came to the ship's rescue and apprehended the pirates. But after determining it would be too difficult to obtain a conviction, Russian officials said that they dropped plans to take the pirates to Moscow for trial.

Instead, like many other warships that have intercepted pirate skiffs, the Russian marines released the pirates — but not before removing weapons and navigation equipment from the boat several hundred miles from shore. Russian officials gave no explanation for removing the navigation equipment.

A Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson said radio signals from the boat disappeared about an hour after the release. "That could mean that they are dead," the spokesperson said....

[Ret10Echo]

Originally Posted by incarcerated

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...atestheadlines

Freed Pirates May Have Drowned

AFRICA NEWS
MAY 11, 2010, 11:31 A.M. ET
By SARAH CHILDRESS in Nairobi, Kenya, ABDINASIR MOHAMED in Mogadishu, Somalia and GREG WHITE in Moscow
Ten Pirates released from a Russian warship 300 miles out to sea may have drowned, according to Russian officials and colleagues of the pirates, raising fears of retaliation against other vessels plying East African waters.

The pirates were captured last week after they hijacked the Moscow University, a Liberian-flagged, Russian-operated oil tanker sailing off the Somali coast. A Russian warship came to the ship's rescue and apprehended the pirates. But after determining it would be too difficult to obtain a conviction, Russian officials said that they dropped plans to take the pirates to Moscow for trial.

Instead, like many other warships that have intercepted pirate skiffs, the Russian marines released the pirates — but not before removing weapons and navigation equipment from the boat several hundred miles from shore. Russian officials gave no explanation for removing the navigation equipment.

A Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson said radio signals from the boat disappeared about an hour after the release. "That could mean that they are dead," the spokesperson said....

Это очень русский.


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