Posted on 11/20/2009 12:06:14 AM PST by myknowledge
MOGADISHU, Somalia — As a Spanish warship looked on, a $3.3 million ransom was delivered by boat Tuesday and Somali pirates freed a Spanish trawler and its 36 crew members.
Spain's prime minister did little to deny paying off the hijackers — one reason the lucrative attacks are on the rise.
"The government did what it had to do," Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told a news conference in Madrid. "The important thing is that the sailors will be back with us. The first obligation of a country, of the government of a state, is to save the lives of its countrymen."
Somali pirates attacked two more ships on Monday and still hold about a dozen ships with more than 200 crew, including a British couple who were taken from their 38-foot sailboat last month.
Ali Gab, a self-described pirate, told The Associated Press the hijackers of the Spanish tuna boat Alakrana were paid $3.3 million in ransom, delivered by boat as sailors aboard a nearby warship watched.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
$3.3 million of ransom money was paid to secure the release of these 5 Spanish crewmen.
Typical euroweenie Spanish government. Should never have caved in to the pirates demands. Instead, they should have replicated the same effort by the U.S. Navy SEAL team earlier this year that freed the skipper of Maersk Alabama.
looks like a very profitable business being a pirate. they are very sucessful.
Pirates, even mohamadenes, aren’t utterly stupid. They now know that US flagged ships such as the Maersk are armed, and Spanish ships equal payday.
Gee, who do you think they’ll target next?
It’s kind of sad to see a once great world power reduced to a bunch of pansies groveling to a little boatload of African thugs. There was a time when Spain would have eaten them for breakfast without batting an eye.
How soon until zero places our country “in the same boat” with the Spanish losers?
Thanks, you Spanish socialist asshole. Way to encourage the Mohammedan pirates. Where’s Thomas Jefferson when you need him?
This gun should make piracy a very dangerous business for them.
Zapatero is scum.
Hahahah the dumb pirates accepted dollars for ransom! Who knows next time maybe try offering 3 million frequent flyer miles?
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
Stupid: EURO-Pus—!
So the spaniards quit reading history, again. Shocking
The real answer is to destroy the country that harbors them.
I’m in the wrong line of work.
What, crush the government? Force the population into squalor? Destroy the infrastructure? Spread desease? Forget it. It's already been done and it hasn't helped..
Too bad a private contractor could not have had a plane high above, and launch a Hellfire missile into the pirates when the crew was a safe kilometer away.
Bingo. The only cure is to destroy the pirates themselves, and too few are willing to do so.
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