And it continues with the pirates...

[Alfonso Jones]

Just received this bulletin:

PIRATES ATTACK U.S.-FLAGGED SHIP OFF SOMALI COAST IN UNSUCCESSFUL NEW HIJACKING ATTEMPT

I guess the lesson was not learned - or perhaps it was...

Bill P

[Selene]

OK Bil

l know this is either woo woo stuff or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy deal or Bill is a government agent and he controls the dolphins which will save us from the pirates!

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/...nt_11184581.htm

Adam

Edited April 15, 2009 by Selene

[Alfonso Jones]

OK Bil

l know this is either woo woo stuff or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy deal or Bill is a government agent and he controls the dolphins which will safe up from the pirates!

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/...nt_11184581.htm

Adam

LOL!

Bill P

[Selene]

Amazing website:

This has the treaties with the Muslim Pirates back in 1801.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1786t.asp

It seems like we paid tribute until 1815.

Adam

[Selene]

Folks:

This makes absolutely no immediate sense to me.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1

Anyone see any advantage to this for us citizens?

Looking around for my trusty musket.

I remain,

Adam

[Christopher]

Folks:

This makes absolutely no immediate sense to me.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1

Anyone see any advantage to this for us citizens?

Looking around for my trusty musket.

I remain,

Adam

Interesting posts. Well, are you refering to sending the pirate back to Kenya, putting him on trial in the U.S., or treating him as a minor?

If Kenya, then the advantage might be maintenance of international treaties and agreements (we comply, they comply).

If trial in U.S., that just seems right and fair according to the Constitution.

If treating him as a minor, that's something to be debated concerning psychological development and appropriate punishment.

In case you need it: "Loading and Firing a French Musket"

-> http://www.militaryheritage.com/loading1777frenchmusket.htm

Chris

[sbeaulieu]

They're talking about a possible life sentence...might seem a bit overboard (pun intended) if he's a minor. If the captain had been killed, I could see imposing life since our laws usually are stiff with kidnapping ending in murder. No American lives were lost, so wouldn't kidnapping charges apply only? It will certainly be interesting to see what the outcome is since it's been 200 or so years that any piracy against Americans occurred.

~ Shane

[Chris Grieb]

Shane; There are minors serving life sentences here in the US.

On a the same point does anyone know how the Kenya courts have dealt with other captured pirates. Have there been any other captured pirates?

[Ed Hudgins]

Here's one way to deal with pirates:

-------------

In chapter 2 of his Life of Julius Caesar, the Greek author Plutarch of Chaeronea (46-c.120) describes what happened when [a young Julius] Caesar encountered the pirates [in 75 BC]. The translation below was made by Robin Seager.

First, when the pirates demanded a ransom of twenty talents, Caesar burst out laughing. They did not know, he said, who it was that they had captured, and he volunteered to pay fifty. Then, when he had sent his followers to the various cities in order to raise the money and was left with one friend and two servants among these Cilicians, about the most bloodthirsty people in the world, he treated them so highhandedly that, whenever he wanted to sleep, he would send to them and tell them to stop talking.

For thirty-eight days, with the greatest unconcern, he joined in all their games and exercises, just as if he was their leader instead of their prisoner. He also wrote poems and speeches which he read aloud to them, and if they failed to admire his work, he would call them to their faces illiterate savages, and would often laughingly threaten to have them all hanged. They were much taken with this and attributed his freedom of speech to a kind of simplicity in his character or boyish playfulness.

However, the ransom arrived from Miletus and, as soon as he had paid it and been set free, he immediately manned some ships and set sail from the harbor of Miletus against the pirates. He found them still there, lying at anchor off the island, and he captured nearly all of them. He took their property as spoils of war and put the men themselves into the prison at Pergamon. He then went in person to [Marcus] Junius, the governor of Asia, thinking it proper that he, as praetor in charge of the province, should see to the punishment of the prisoners. Junius, however, cast longing eyes at the money, which came to a considerable sum, and kept saying that he needed time to look into the case.

Caesar paid no further attention to him. He went to Pergamon, took the pirates out of prison and crucified the lot of them, just as he had often told them he would do when he was on the island and they imagined that he was joking.

[Selene]

Ed: That one works for me.

"US History Encyclopedia: Piracy

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Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > US History Encyclopedia

From the early seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, the Atlantic and Gulf coasts witnessed extensive acts of piracy against nations engaging in shipping and trade. From New England's earliest settlement, its shipping suffered from coastal piracy. In 1653 Massachusetts made piracy punishable by death, and governors sometimes sent out armed ships to attack offshore pirates. At the same time, however, colonial governors granted "privateering" commissions to sea desperadoes.

The Navigation Acts, passed by Great Britain between 1650 and 1696, halted all foreign ships from trading in the American colonies; this led to colonial smuggling and eventually to piracy. Colonial merchants and settlers bought pirates' stolen goods and thus obtained necessary commodities at a cheap price. New York, Philadelphia, and Newport, Rhode Island, were rivals in this scandalous trade, with Boston, Virginia, and the Carolinas also buying stolen goods. When Richard Coote, earl of Bellomont, became governor of New York and New England in 1697, he was ordered to "suppress the prevailing piracy" causing "so much distress along the coast." Coote found general colonial connivance with pirates, however, especially in New York, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia. One New York merchant secured $500,000 in seven years through promotion of piracy.

Piracy reached a peak during the period 1705–1725, and particularly between 1721 and 1724, when terror reigned on the New England coast. English men-of-war ended this peril, but after the American Revolution piratical attacks on U.S. ships by French "privateers" led to an undeclared war between France and the United States and contributed to the creation of the U.S. Navy. Piratical operations of English men-of-war on U.S. coasts and the high seas, including the impressment of American seamen, hastened the War of 1812. The period 1805–1825 witnessed a resurgence of piracy, which led to the expansion of the U.S. Navy, which was active suppressing piracy and convoying ships. More than three thousand instances of piracy were recorded between 1814 and 1824, half of them on U.S. shipping.

Beginning in 1805 the navy began warring on pirates on the Louisiana and Gulf coasts, a region long plagued by piracy. The Barataria pirates were driven out in 1814, and the Aury-Laffite pirates were purged from Galveston, Texas, in 1817. From 1816 to 1824 the United States faced the perplexing problem of dealing with the piratical "privateers" of the new Latin American republics. Congress finally was so angered by these freebooters' depredations that in 1819 it passed an act prescribing the death penalty for piracy.

The Spaniards of Cuba and Puerto Rico sent out pirates who captured American ships, murdered their crews, and nearly brought on a war between the United States and the two Spanish colonies. Congress denounced this piracy in 1822, and in 1823 and 1824 it dispatched a strong naval squadron to suppress the pirates. By 1827 piracy had ended on all U.S. coasts."

Adam

[Selene]

Folks: real good wiki page on piracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy#In_international_law

"Law of nations

Piracy is of note in international law as it is commonly held to represent the earliest invocation of the concept of universal jurisdiction. The crime of piracy is considered a breach of jus cogens, a conventional peremptory international norm that states must uphold. Those committing thefts on the high seas, inhibiting trade, and endangering maritime communication are considered by sovereign states to be hostis humani generis (enemies of humanity).[72]

In the United States, criminal prosecution of piracy is authorized in the U.S. Constitution, Art. I Sec. 8 cl. 10:

The Congress shall have Power ... To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

In English admiralty law, piracy was defined as petit treason during the medieval period, and offenders were accordingly liable to be drawn and quartered on conviction. Piracy was redefined as a felony during the reign of Henry VIII. In either case, piracy cases were cognizable in the courts of the Lord High Admiral. English admiralty vice-admiralty judges emphasized that "neither Faith nor Oath is to be kept" with pirates; i.e. contracts with pirates and oaths sworn to them were not legally binding. Pirates were legally subject to summary execution by their captors if captured in battle. In practice, instances of summary justice and annulment of oaths and contracts involving pirates do not appear to have been common.

Since piracy often takes place outside the territorial waters of any state, the prosecution of pirates by sovereign states represents a complex legal situation. The prosecution of pirates on the high seas contravenes the conventional freedom of the high seas. However, because of universal jurisdiction, action can be taken against pirates without objection from the flag state of the pirate vessel. This represents an exception to the principle extra territorium jus dicenti impune non paretur (the judgment of one who is exceeding his territorial jurisdiction may be disobeyed with impunity).[73]

In 2008 the British Foreign Office advised the Royal Navy not to detain pirates of certain nationalities as they might be able to claim asylum in Britain under British human rights legislation, if their national laws included execution, or mutilation as a judicial punishment for crimes committed as pirates.[74]"

[sbeaulieu]

Shane; There are minors serving life sentences here in the US.

On a the same point does anyone know how the Kenya courts have dealt with other captured pirates. Have there been any other captured pirates?

Chris,

I remember reading some cases where minors were tried as adults receiving life sentences. But as this individual, in this particular case, did not murder anyone, I don't see how they could impose a life sentence. Maybe under kidnapping in addition to piracy?

~ Shane

Edited April 17, 2009 by sbeaulieu