Punishing pirates

Fighting the new buccaneers is difficult, taking them to trial, a nightmare

Eight young Somalis are locked away in the Rebibbia Penitentiary in Rome, accused of having attacked the Italian ship Montecristo off the Somali coast, in the Indian Ocean. The trial, which took place a year ago, was Italy’s first against modern-day piracy. At the time of the attack, hijackings off the Horn of Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea and in the Far East were reaching dizzying heights.

In 2011 there were 250 attempted piracy assaults on ships and over 750 people were taken hostage off the Somali coast alone. There was a time when these pirates would have swung¸ as hostis humani generis (‘enemies of mankind’), strung up no questions asked to the ship’s yardarm. Today, they are sentenced to extensive stays in Italian jails. “These are the positive effects of five years of insistent appeals by the United Nations to get states to enforce jurisdiction on this heinous crime ”, explains Admiral Fabio Caffio, an expert in international law.

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