I thought being a pirate required a certain minimal intelligence. This guy was apparently not the sharpest hook on the stump! Belgian police detain two suspected Somali pirates By Caroline Baumann and James Fontanella-Khan in Brussels Mohamed Abdi Hassan Belgian police have arrested one of the alleged most notorious Somali pirate leaders, suspected of having reaped millions of dollars in ransom payments from operations off the east African coast, the federal prosecutor said on Monday. Mohamed Abdi Hassan, nicknamed Afweyne or “Big Mouth”, was detained with another suspect, Mohamed M. A. or “Tiiceey”, in Bruges, after he arrived in Brussels on Saturday on a flight from Nairobi, according to a police official. The two are suspected of involvement in the 2009 hijacking of the Belgian ship Pompeii. Mr Hassan was arrested after being lured by undercover Belgian police to collaborate on a documentary about his life as a pirate and was detained on his way to sign a contract with a fictitious production company. “After patiently starting a relationship of trust with Tiiceey, and through him with Afweyne, which took several months, both were prepared to participate in this [film] project,” federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle told a news conference. The targeting and arrest of “Big Mouth” – described last year by the UN as “one of the most notorious and influential leaders” of Somalia’s pirates – will come as a blow for the network, which netted $160m in 2011 alone by hijacking large tankers crossing the Gulf of Aden and the northwestern Indian Ocean, according to the US-based One Earth Future Foundation think-tank. Overall, pirate attacks have gone down significantly, according to a 2012 report by the foundation, but their impact on the global economy remained at close to $6bn in 2012, it said. A spokesman for Lady Ashton, EU foreign affairs chief, said: “While fully respecting the principle of presumption of innocence, we consider that this arrest marks a significant step in the fight against piracy. It demonstrates that law enforcement authorities can now track not only the pirates themselves, but also the [alleged] leaders of these criminal networks.” The Pompeii hijacking, which lasted for more than 70 days, is one of several with suspected links to Mr Hassan. It was the first Belgian ship to be seized by Somali pirates, who demanded $8m for its release. Mr Hassan was also linked to the 2008 capture of the Saudi-owned Sirius Star oil supertanker, released for a reported ransom of $3m. A year later, Mr Hassan was suspected of hijacking a Ukrainian transport ship carrying 33 refurbished Soviet-era battle tanks, which was released after 134 days for a reported $3m. A UN monitoring group accused Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, former Somali president, of shielding Mr Hassan and other alleged pirate kingpins by issuing diplomatic passports as an inducement to dismantle pirate networks. In January Mr Hassan held a news conference in Somalia to announce his retirement from piracy. “After being in piracy for eight years, I have decided to renounce and quit, and from today on I will not be involved in this gang activity,” Mr Hassan said.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 03:39:12 +0000
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