Applebaum: Why Somali Pirates "Walk the Plank"

Anne Applebaum has written about the difficulties of enforcing the law when dealing with Somali pirates:

In fact, the Russian destroyer wasn't the first to hit upon this solution. Asked last weekend, the commander of the European naval force that coordinates military operations off the Somali coast said there had been "similar instances" involving Dutch and Danish ships but declined to elaborate. He also noted that of 400 pirates captured in the past three months, only 40 have been prosecuted. The rest have been released. Or "released."

Why? Pirates are hard to convict because evidence at sea is hard to collect, because ship captains have other priorities and because the nearest working courts, in Kenya and the Seychelles, are overwhelmed by pirate cases. Pirates are also being released because they are learning to work the international legal system: Last month, pirates captured by the German navy sued the German government on the grounds that they could not be guaranteed a fair trial in Mombasa, Kenya. As for Somalis who have landed in Germany itself -- or the Netherlands, or Britain -- they are rapidly learning that they can claim political asylum. Captured pirates can also be brought to the United States, of course, but that is expensive, time-consuming and at some level absurd. Eleven Somalis were indicted in Norfolk last month -- all men who cannot speak English, cannot read or write any language, and do not know their birth dates. When asked their dietary preferences, they requested camel or buffalo meat. How can they be judged by a jury of their peers, as American law requires?

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