Somali pirates freed a Saudi supertanker seized in the world’s biggest ship hijacking for a $3 million ransom on Friday, sources said.“All our people have now left the Sirius Star. The ship is free, the crew is free,” Mohamed Said, one of the leaders of the pirate group, told AFP by telephone from the pirate lair of Harardhere. “No member of the crew or of the pirates was hurt during this hijacking.” The crew of the Sirius Star is made up of 25 people from Britain, Croatia, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and Poland, where the ship’s captain hails from. Abu Bakr Ahmad, the manager of Haradheere port near where the Sirius Star was held for 56 days, said the tanker will leave the port Saturday. He said the pirates received $3 million in ransom from the owners.There was no immediate comment from Vela International, the Dubai-based shipping arm of Saudi Aramco, which operates the ship.Saudi ambassador in Nairobi Nabeel Khalaf Ashoor said the embassy was not approached, neither by the tanker’s owners nor the mediators who negotiated for its release.The Sirius Star was captured in November with 25 crew members, 450 nautical miles southeast of Kenya in the boldest seizure to date by Somali pirates.
The capture of the tanker and its $100 million cargo of crude in November drew attention to a surge in piracy off Somalia that has brought global navies rushing to protect one of the world’s most important shipping lanes.Brief dispute over ransom Farah Osman, an associate of the pirates, speaking to Reuters from Haradheere, said the pirates had wanted more money (reportedly up to $25 million) but finally agreed to $3 million for the ship.Sources close to the negotiations said three million dollars were delivered to the pirate group onshore on Thursday. A dispute briefly erupted between the pirates over how the ransom money should be distributed. A regional maritime group confirmed the release.
“The last batch of gunmen have disembarked from the Sirius Star. She is now steaming out to safe waters,” said Andrew Mwangura, of the East African Seafarers Assistance program, based in the Kenyan port of Mombasa. The rampant piracy off Somalia worsened dramatically in 2008 as an insurgency fueled chaos onshore.  With Somalia’s pirates, a rag-tag army of fishermen and former coastguards armed with RPGs, speedboats and grapnels, threatening world trade, the international community was jolted into action. The European Union launched its first ever joint naval operation in a bid to deter pirates in the Gulf of Aden and escort UN food aid shipments to war-wracked Somalia. The UN Security Council also adopted resolutions empowering foreign navies to tackle piracy and further plans are afoot to ensure all legal provisions are made for pirates to be arrested and prosecuted.
The piracy in the busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean shipping lanes has sent shipping insurance prices soaring, made some owners choose to go round South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal, and brought an unprecedented deployment of international warships to the region. The US Navy said on Thursday it was planning to launch a force to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden, an offshoot of an earlier mission.  Chinese warships also began anti-piracy patrols off Somalia this week. Somali pirates still hold 16 vessels and more than 300 crew members. Among them is the MV Faina, a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 33 battle tanks which was seized in September last year. –