Landing the Big One

Landing the Big One

Monday, May 05, 2008

Well, that didn't take long: Somali opposition accuses France of 'kidnapping' pirates

Somali opposition accuses France of 'kidnapping' pirates:
Somalia's main opposition group said Monday that France lacks the legal mandate to charge six pirates with hostage-taking and accused the European power of "kidnapping" them.

"France and Somalia do not have an extradition treaty and French laws are not applicable to crimes committed outside France," said Hussein Mohamed Aidid, chairman of the Eritrea-based Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS).

"If the pirates were extradited illegally, like it happened in this case, then they were kidnapped by the French special forces. If the pirates acted against the law, the French should not have done the same.

"The pirates are criminals, but they should be punished by courts with the legal mandate to do so," Aidid, Somalia's former deputy prime minister, told AFP.

French special forces last month arrested the pirates for kidnapping the French luxury yacht Le Ponant, freeing the boat and its 30-member crew on April 11.

Despite the lack of any formal extradition accord, French prosecutors charged them in Paris with "abduction and detention of hostages with a view to obtaining a ransom," as well as "theft" and "receiving stolen goods."

The pirates are still in French detention.
Detention is what really counts, isn't it? It's not like the opposition party in Somalia -um- Eritrea- is going to attack France and reclaim the pirates...

That's what happens when you are a failed state. It's hard to get any respect.

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