Articles | 'Ransom paid for captured tanker'

Ransom frees tanker hostages

Published: Friday, 9 January 2009, 1:23PM

A Saudi supertanker captured with its $100 million crude oil cargo has been released after a $3 million ransom was paid.

The MV Sirius Star and its 25 crew - including two Britons, Peter French and James Grady - was snatched by Somali pirates on November 15, 450 nautical miles southeast off Kenya in the boldest seizure of its kind to date.

Andrew Mwanguara of the East African Seafarers Assistance programme said: "The last batch of gunmen have disembarked from the Sirius Star. She is now steaming out to safe waters."

An associate of the gang, Farah Osman, said the pirates had wanted more money.

Almost 20,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden each year on their way to and from the Suez Canal and there have been at least 96 pirate attacks in the last year in Somali waters, with 40 ships hijacked.

Fifteen ships with nearly 300 crew are still in the hands of Somali pirates, who dock the hijacked vessels near the eastern and southern coast as they negotiate for ransom.

More than a dozen warships from countries as diverse as Britain, the US, India, Iran, China, Malaysia, Turkey, Russia, France and Germany now have naval forces patrolling the vast gulf.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991. Piracy was almost wiped out during a previous Islamic administration in 2006.

But since then, ransoms have increased significantly, providing multi-million-dollar hauls.

Some factions of the insurgency are believed to be benefiting from the criminal enterprise by providing protection rackets and taking a cut of the ransom.