Piracy

Piracy (해적/海賊) is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. According to the document of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), piracy means any illegal acts of violence or detention or any act of voluntary cooperation or intentional facilitation of such illegal acts.

Those who engage in acts of piracy are called pirates. Historically, offenders have usually been apprehended by military personnel and tried by military tribunals. Today the international community is facing many problems in bringing pirates to justice. In an analogy, piracy is usually termed the infringement upon the intellectual property rights of foreigners.

Key words
piracy, Somali pirates, Captain Seok, jury trial, IMO

Anti-piracy measures
As the important shipping trade routes of Korea are threatened more often than by piracy at sea off the coast of Somalia, Straight of Malacca, etc., the Korean armed forces joined the operation of Combined Task Force 150, a multinational coalition task force establishing the Maritime Security Patrol Area (MSPA) within the Gulf of Aden.

When the 11,500-ton freighter, Samho Jewelry, was seized by the Somali pirates about 1200 kilo meters off the coast of northeast Somalia, the Korean government dispatched a naval destroyer on antipiracy patrol to track the ship. On January 21, 2011, Korean special forces staged a daring early morning rescue on a hijacked freighter, killing eight pirates and rescuing all 21 hostages — including 8 South Koreans, 2 Indonesians and 11 citizens of Myanmar. During the "Operation of Aden", the captain was shot down and seriously injured. And the pirates under arrest were brought to Busan which is believed to have the jurisdiction over such pirates.

Rescue operations on hijacked ships are rare, with countries often deciding against such attempts over concerns for the safety of the crew. Most shipping companies, in turn, opt to pay the expensive ransoms demanded by Somali pirates to release hijacked ships rather than engage in confrontations.

Somali pirates on trial
For the first time in the modern Korean history, four pirates stood trial in Busan on May 22, 2011, while one pirate who pleaded guilty to all charges against him, was tried separately on June 1. The five pirates were caught in a commando operation in January to retake a hijacked South Korean cargo. After being brought to Korea, they were indicted on charges of hijacking the vessel, and attempting to gun down its captain, Seok Hae-kyun. The Busan District court handled the case in an intensive jury trial to make a ruling on Friday, May 27, 2011. The accused were sentenced up to life imprisonment since all charges against them ㅡ attempted murder, maritime burglary and hostage taking ㅡ were affirmed. The court hired two Somali-to-English and two English-to-Korean interpreters since the accused can only speak Somali.

The attorney-at-law representing the Somali pirates appealed on the ground that the main character, Mahomed Arai, did not intend to kill Captain Seok, and the sentence is too heavy. Other pirates sentenced to 12 to 15-year imprisonment argued they also did not jointly attempt to murder the captain and other crew members. But the Busan High Court affirmed the decision of the first instance.

In September, all the five pirates appealed again to the Supreme Court. The prosecutors also appealed because they should be punished as jointly attempted murderers under conspiracy. It was a really speedy trial. Finally, on December 22, 2011, all the pirates' appeal were rejected by the Supreme Court. So the life imprisonment sentence against Arai was confirmed.

In the meantime, it was reported that Somali pirates released Singapore palm oil tanker with its 21 crew members, but continued to keep four South Korean hostages demanding the release of five Somali pirates in Korean jail. The injured Captain Seok, who was treated at Ajou University Hospital in Suwon for 288 days, and recovered in the midst of national enthusiastic wishes and has returned to normal life.