Kenya to accept suspected pirates for prosecution, minister announces after meeting with EU

Kenya to accept suspected pirates for prosecution

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya will once again begin accepting and prosecuting suspected Somali pirates arrested by international warships patrolling off East Africa, a top Kenyan official said Wednesday.

Kenyan authorities will evaluate the individual cases of Somali pirates arrested by international warships and could decline to prosecute the pirates if the cases do not meet certain criteria, said Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula.

Wetangula spoke during a joint news conference after meeting with Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign affairs and security chief, who is visiting the region to press for more help in prosecuting pirates.

Kenya earlier this year stopped accepting suspects, saying they put undue strain on the country’s justice system. That decision left more than two dozen Somali pirates scooped up by U.S. and European warships sitting in legal limbo on the high seas.

Eleven of those suspects accused of attacking two U.S. Navy ships off the coast of Somalia were later transported to the U.S. and charged with piracy in federal court in Virginia.

Kenya in 2008 signed agreements with Western countries including the U.S. to prosecute and detain Somali pirates captured by international warships. Kenya and the island nation Seychelles are the only two African nations to sign an agreement with the EU to take on piracy cases.

Last month Wetangula said Kenya was unwilling to continue prosecuting and incarcerating Somali pirates because some of the countries that agreed to give financial support to Kenya’s strained justice system had failed to do so.

Ashton said officials had reconciled some of the immediate concerns Kenya has raised — one of them being that the country cannot shoulder the burden of prosecuting pirates alone.

She said she will be traveling to neighboring Tanzania on Wednesday to hold talks with authorities there on how the government can help fight piracy. She will also visit Seychelles.

Ashton said the EU will look into the issue of what to do with jailed pirates once they have served their sentences.

“These are all issues that need to be sorted through and addressed properly so the burden does not fall on the economy of Kenya disproportionately,” Ashton said.

She said the EU will provide additional resources to hire translators and improve Kenyan prison facilities, items Kenya had requested.

Wetangula said the solution to the piracy problem is to bring peace to Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991.