UN advisor says Kenya needs help to try pirates

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

UN advisor says Kenya needs help to try pirates

Written by News.ph.msn.

Oct 13, 2010 at 10:24 AM

The UN special advisor on piracy Jack Lang said Tuesday Kenya needed support in trying Somali pirates captured by foreign navies after indications Nairobi was unwilling to take in more suspects.

 

"I can understand that Kenya wants the important effort it has undertaken with the international community be extended, re-enforced and supported by other measures and other countries," Lang told reporters in Nairobi.

 

Some 136 suspected Somali pirates, brought mainly by international navies deployed off Somalia since 2008, are being held in Kenyan prisons and dozens have been sentenced to jail terms.

 

"We can understand that Kenya, after implementing the transfer agreement for some time, wants to take stock," Lang said.

 

Nairobi recently indicated it was not ready to renew agreements with the United States, Britain and some EU coutries allowing the trial of Somali pirates captured by those countries off Somali to be tried in Kenya.

 

Kenya and the Seychelles are the only coastal countries to have agreed to try suspects brought by the foreign navies.

 

Lang will on Wednesday travel to Somalia's breakaway regions of Somaliland and Puntland to visit prisons where Somali pirates convicted in other countries are to serve their sentences