Somali president says pirates in French jail from his region

07 May, 2008

PARIS - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed said Monday that six pirates in French custody for allegedly holding the crew of a yacht hostage are likely from his home region in the Horn of Africa country.

Ahmed, who was in Paris for meetings with President Nicolas Sarkozy and other top French officials, did not confirm a French news report that four of the pirates were members of his extended family, or clan.

But he said that even if they turned out to be relatives, "they must pay" for their crimes.

"If they are from my family, or if they are from another family, I am for justice," Ahmed told reporters after meeting with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

He was responding to a report posted Monday on the Web site of the French newsweekly Le Point quoting several unidentified sources as saying four of the six pirates captured by French troops last month were members of Ahmed's Darod-Majteen clan.

While he did not directly confirm whether he had family ties with the pirates, Ahmed said that "all six are, I think, from my region."

French troops caught the six in an April 11 land chase in Somalia. A half dozen other pirates are thought to have escaped.

Helicopter-borne French troops swooped down on the pirates after they freed the 30-member crew of the French luxury yacht Ponant, which they had held for a week off the Somali coast. The ship's owners reportedly paid a ransom to the pirates to get the crew released.

The six were taken by military plane to France, where preliminary charges were filed against them.

Piracy is rampant along Somalia's 1,880-mile coast, which is the longest in Africa and near key shipping routes connecting the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The seas around Somalia have seen more than a dozen pirate attacks this year alone.

In response to the attacks, the United States and France last month introduced a U.N. resolution that would allow countries to chase pirates off Somalia's coast into the country's territorial waters and arrest the sea thieves. -AP