SOMALI PIRATES:MALAYSIA MUST ESTABLISH THE LAW

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian authorities must establish
under what law the seven Somali pirates detained on board MT Bunga Laurel in the
Gulf of Aden last Friday, will be prosecuted, according to a law professor.

Professor Salleh Buang, a visiting professor at Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia, Johor Bahru, said that piracy in the high sea was an international
crime, thus subjected to universal jurisdiction, that any nation can take
action.

"In the case of international crime like war crime, torture and piracy...
when it becomes an international crime, all states in the world have universal
jurisdiction".

"But when the criminal is brought to our country for prosecution...we have
to prosecute under the national law and of course the judge will ask under what
law," Salleh told Bernama when asked to comment on the matter.

The pirates were being brought here for the purpose of prosecution. They
were arrested in the gulf, 7,000km away where Malaysia is not a littoral state.

News reports said that it was learnt that the Bunga Laurel is a
Panama-registered vessel, owned by a Japanese shipping company, and managed and
chartered by the Malaysian International Shipping Corporation.

It was manned by a Filipino crew, carried cargo of another country, hijacked
in international waters in the gulf off Oman and, finally, taken by the
Malaysian commandos.

The case is now being studied by the Home Ministry's legal experts, the
National Security Council and the Attorney-General's Chambers.

Salleh said if there were Malaysian crew members rescued, the Malaysian
authorities would have a much stronger case to prosecute the pirates in this
country.

However, he said it was a good achievement by the Malaysian commandos.

"States of the world must pool resources together to deal with this heinous
crime of piracy at high sea," he said.

-- BERNAMA

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