Tougher security, new court needed for pirates: U.N.

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) ― Somali pirates are spreading their attack zone and now costing more than $7 billion a year, according to a U.N. study released Monday which calls for new security and legal weapons to be urgently deployed.

A new court to try pirates with Somalis jurisdiction but based in a foreign country should be set up, former French foreign minister Jack Lang said in the report.

The international naval force now patrolling the Indian Ocean must operate closer to the Somali ports where the pirates are based, but economic incentives must be given to stop Somali youths turning to piracy, the report said.

Somali piracy became an international phenomenon in 2007. “The battle is being won by the pirates,” Lang commented to reporters. “They are going further out into the Indian Ocean and with more high-tech equipment to help them.”

His report, to be debated by the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, said pirate raids are now costing at least $7 billion a year for the military force, lost merchandise, ransom fees, higher insurance and a host of other costs.

“If the international community does not act with extreme urgency, the pirate economy off the coast of Somalia will continue to prosper until it reaches the point of no return,” his report said.

Lang estimated there are just 1,500 pirates. But dozens of warships from the European Union, United States, Russia, China and other countries patrol the Indian Ocean.

Nine out of the 10 pirates caught at sea by the international fleet are freed almost straight away because there is nowhere to try them. Lang proposed an extra-territorial Somali court.

Tanzania has indicated it would be ready to accept such a court, Lang’s entourage said. The U.N.-backed international court on Rwanda sits in Arusha, Tanzania and the same facilities could be used even though the jurisdiction would be Somali.

A similar system was used for the trial of the Libyan bombers of the Pan-Am jet blown up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. Under a deal with Libya, the Scottish court sat in the Netherlands.

Lang’s report said the cost of setting up the court, new prisons and other measures to strengthen Somalia’s judicial system would be about $25 million.

Puntland and Somaliland, the two regions in lawless Somalia, where most pirates are based would need major economic aid however to encourage the youths there not to join the “mafia” gangs that Lang said run the pirate operations.