Dutch prosecutors demanded seven-year sentences last week against five Somali men on trial in the Netherlands on charges of piracy.

By Sophie van Leeuwen

The men, aged between 25 and 45, are facing charges of “sea robbery” at the district court in the port city of Rotterdam. They are accused of attacking the Turkish freighter Samanyolu with a grenade launcher and other weapons in January 2009.

The freighter, which was sailing under a Dutch Antilles flag, responded by firing flares at the pirates and throwing a Molotov cocktail into their skiff, forcing the Somali men to jump overboard. A Danish naval vessel picked them up on January 2nd and they were extradited to the Netherlands following a request from the Dutch government.

Angry and assertive, the men appeared in court last Tuesday. They are ordinary fishermen, they told the court. All five pleaded not guility despite two of them admitting they had initially set off to sea with ambitions of piracy.

“The [piracy] plan was abandoned,” suspect Abdirisaq Abdulahi Hirsi, 33, told the court. “The engine [of the skiff] was broken, we had no food and no water and I was ill. We had been at sea for three days, I decided not to follow through [the hijacking], but to die at sea,” he said.

“I was hungry!” 45-year-old Jama Mohamed Samatar told the court. “This explains my presence on the boat. I was looking for food. And now I am in jail! Do you want to make me mad?”

Mohammed has a wife and children in Somalia. Exited and with loud voice he told the court his story.
“I went on a trip to look for money. It was my plan to visit some family members, ask for help. I ended up in this fishermen boat. Yes, I had a Kalashnikov. I have to be able to defend myself. I have been battered. You can see my scars.”

“But why a ladder in this boat?” asked Judge Jan Willem Klein Wolterink. “Why do you need a ladder in open sea?” The suspect responded that the ladder served as a steer. The judge looked surprised.

Mohammed continues his story. The journey took eight hours, nine hours. Suddenly, the engine broke down. The fishermen bobbed up and down on the water. Then they saw the Dutch ship. They didn’t want to hijack it, they needed help. But the Somali vessel was besieged and the small boat sank.

But sailors on board the Dutch Antilles-flagged shipped told a different story:“I saw that one of the men had a rocket launcher in his hands,” the ship’s first machinist told investigators of last year’s attack in a statement read out in the Rotterdam court.

He said the five Somali men in court, shot at the ship with assault rifles and later “I saw the rocket launcher being aimed at the bridge. I saw it go off, but it missed. I feared for my life.”

Mohammed told the judge that extreme poverty is the reason why he finds himself in court: “I am not able to buy a packet of sugar!” he shouted. “I have nothing! Everything is expensive in Somalia. I need help!”
“What would be your plans as a free man?” the judge asked him. Mohammed: “Could my family come and live here? Or could you give me enough money to return to Somalia? If the Dutch government doesn’t give me enough money, I’ll end up with nothing.”

Defence counsel Haroon Raza is still contesting Dutch jurisdiction over the case, saying the Dutch Antilles has its own judicial system and that “there is thus no reason to have a trial in the Netherlands.”
The defence had also tried to postpone the case so they could travel to Turkey to question the Samanyolu crew, but most of them had already returned to sea.

The parties will present their final arguments today and the court will rule on June 16th, making the Netherlands the first Western country to present a verdict on alleged Somali pirates that have become a serious threat to international sea transport.

Even if the men are convicted, Raza says the threat of prosecution in the Netherlands will not act as a deterrent to future pirates: “Everything is better than sitting on a jetty in Somalia.”

Also read an international with Geert-Jan Knoops: International Law "no solution to piracy"

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