Britain’s anti-piracy ‘conveyor belt’ stretches from Somalia to Seychelles and back

February 22nd, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Britain has already spent £9 million – more than any other nation, and a
quarter of all United Nations Indian Ocean counter-piracy funds – to train
prison staff, help upgrade cells or build new prisons, and to improve local
lawyers’ expertise in the Seychelles, Somalia and Kenya.

That funding is necessary because under European human rights law and
international legal standards, pirates arrested at sea must be transferred
to countries that will give them a fair trial and house them in decent
prisons.

Without the improvements, existing facilities will become swamped and
suspected pirates would simply be released back to Somalia, reinforcing what
one British diplomat in the region called “their sense of invulnerability”.

Joel Morgan, the Seychelles’ home affairs minister, told The Daily Telegraph
that Britain’s role in helping his country combat piracy was “very
significant”. A new intelligence-sharing scheme was agreed yesterday between
the two countries, named RAPPICC.

“That came about thanks principally to Britain, and other countries must now
make their efforts to join into the scheme so that it truly can achieve the
goals it has set out,” he said. “The UK has been a very strong partner in
the whole process from our point of view and the British government, its
military and its High Commission here have all been exemplary in the way
they have come to help.”

Almost a fifth of the 500 prisoners being held at Montagne Possé in the
Seychelles are Somali pirates, either awaiting trial or already serving
their sentences.

For Mr Thurbin, Britain’s lead role in bringing Indian Ocean prisons up to
international standards is “wise economics”.

“It’s that discussion, what is prison for, and for me whether you are a
Somali, a Seychellois, or you’re in Britain, it’s about rehabilitation,”
hesaid.

“The public perception of pirates is quite often lock them up and throw away
the key. The reality is that at some point this person will be back on the
streets, or on the seas, again. My argument is, while I’ve got a captive
audience, I work with them to help them better themselves so that when they
are released, they are less of a risk to the public.”

Michael Mulkerrins, one of the two CPS lawyers assigned to the Seychelles,
said the mentoring and expertise brought by he and his colleague, Charlie
Brown, would allow more prosecutions in the future. “By having us here, I
think we can say that the Seychelles will now and in the future have a great
deal more confidence to take on more pirate cases,” he said.

A key barrier to that, however, has been the lack of prison facilities in
Somalia itself. Facilities in the Seychelles and Kenya are already full, and
both are struggling to take any more than a trickle of newly arrested
pirates.

But a new prison built by the UN and with £600,000 of British money will open
next year in the central Somali town of Garowe, in the country’s
semi-autonomous region of Puntland. It will house up to 500 convicted
pirates.

Major upgrades to prisons in Hargeisa, in Somaliland, and Bossaso, in Puntland
– both more than half funded by Britain – will also soon begin taking
prisoners transferred from the Seychelles.

This will allow the Seychelles, for example, breathing space to refocus on
what Mr Morgan called “pirate king-pins”.

The support of Britain and other countries for counter-piracy projects,
including funding prosecution and imprisonment, was “critical”, said Alan
Cole, head of the UNODC’s office in Nairobi. “It gives the international
community the ability to say there is no impunity for pirates, that arrest
and prosecutions will continue, and that they will ensure Somalia is
assisted to play its part in that process,” he said.