The Somali pirates had a win and a loss in their ongoing pillaging of the bank accounts of freight carriers in the region.
The loss came at the hands of the Danish Navy’s Absalom, who sunk a pirate “mothership” on Sunday. The Absalom had run off a pirate crew from a vessel they had started to seize last month as well, so our Danish friends had a good month, making them the unlikely baddest dudes in the Horn of Africa; you don’t usually associate the Danes as a naval powerhouse. The ship named after King David’s rebel son is going against type and getting out the Suezmax-sized can of whuppin’ on these modern-day rebels,
However, the pirates won a victory in court in Britain, where their High Court of Justice ruled that paying ransom to captors is not against public policy. In the absence of a naval task force right on top of a captive ship, ransom is often the safest avenue to save the lives of the captured crew. While paying ransom will encourage more piracy in the future, the court reasoned that not paying ransoms will likely result in dead crews, sunken ships and cargoes on the black market for the ships currently under pirate custody.
That puts the task force that the Absalom is currently heading up in a tough spot; the pirates have been given access to British cash if they grab a UK-owned vessel. It will make protecting container shipping going through the Suez Canal and on past Somalia a bit more difficult.
Sources: http://www.cargobusinessnews.com/news/wednesday/news5.html
http://seafarerblog.com/2010/02/27/payment…lic-policy.html
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