Piratas Somalis: Holanda condena cinco a cinco anos

Acho que os holandeses foram muito lenientes com os piratas somalis: cinco anos (provavelmente menos) por pirataria é muito pouco. Deveria ser no mínimo 15 anos e daí para mais. Se a pirataria é um crime sério, como afirmam os procuradores, então cinco anos parece um presente...
Paulo R. Almeida

Dutch court sends 5 to jail for piracy
Shanghai Daily, June 18, 2010

FIVE Somali men were sentenced to prison yesterday in Holland for attacking a Dutch-Antilles-flagged cargo ship with automatic weapons and a rocket-propelled grenade, in the first piracy case to come to trial in Europe in modern times.
The five were convicted of assaulting the Samanyulo in the Gulf of Aden in 2009 - an attack that was thwarted by helicopter-borne Danish marines. Each of the attackers was sentenced to five years in prison.
"Piracy is a serious crime that must be powerfully resisted," said presiding judge Klein Wolterink.
But one of the defendants called the decision unfair.
"Netherlands don't like Muslim people," Sayid Ali Garaar, 39, repeated several times in rough English. "This is not legal."
Other defendants shook their lawyers' hands and waved at reporters as they were escorted out of the courtroom.
The case is a landmark in the fight against the escalating incidents of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
The high-seas hijackings have persisted despite an international armada deployed by China, the United States, the European Union, NATO, Japan and South Korea.
The pirates have sometimes succeeded in collecting multi-million-dollar ransoms.
Maritime experts say the trial is unlikely to deter the piracy, which brings large amounts of money into the impoverished and lawless coastal region of Somalia.
Prosecutors had asked for seven-year sentences, but Wolterink said he took into account the difficult conditions in Somalia that led the men to piracy.
Nonetheless, he said he was swayed by the fact that the pirates "were only out for their own financial gain and didn't let themselves be troubled about damage or suffering caused to victims."
It was only by "lucky coincidence that nobody was killed or wounded," the judge said.
Other Somali piracy suspects are being held in France, Spain, Germany and the US.
Kenya has convicted 18 pirates since 2007. More than 100 accused await trial there.
Hundreds of pirates have been detained and several have been brought to Europe since the international armada was mobilized, but most have been released at sea because of the cost and difficulty of bringing them to trial.
At their trial last month the men sentenced yesterday denied wrongdoing. Most said they had been fishing and approached the container ship for help when their skiff ran out of fuel and food.
Defense lawyers argued that the Danish sailors who rescued the ship were unable to testify. But the judge cited testimony from the ship's crew that the pirates had approached threateningly.