Meeting in Denmark paves way for pirate prisons

[Robb]

Source: AFP (via Straits)

COPENHAGEN - An international anti-piracy meeting in Denmark this week hammered out a judicial framework for how to handle captured pirates, paving the way for the building of special pirate prisons, the organiser said.

(snip)

'You have to be able to prove that a person is a pirate for him to be prosecuted,' Mr Winkler told AFP late on Friday, pointing out that many captured pirates were released due to lacking evidence.

Nonetheless, new numbers showed that a total of '820 Somali pirates are behind bars in 16 different countries at the moment", he said, adding that his working group had been drawing up an international framework to help clarify how the pirates could be imprisoned.

'No country wants two-three-four hundred pirates sitting in their prisons for 15 to 20 years. That's why the system is clogged,' he said, adding 'they simply cannot have (pirates) lounging in the prisons. It is a big burden for their systems.'

Read more: http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_641796.html

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The http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/pirate-prisons-planned-after-meeting/story-e6frf7jx-1226016413391">Herald Sun ran a few more paragraphs of the AFP story, including the proposal to build two pirate-specific prisons in Puntland and Somaliland, and notes that there are currently seven Danes, including three adolescents, being held by pirates.

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Put them all together so that

they'll come out of prison more organized and better at pirating!

[WatsonT]

2. Whatever happened to hanging them?

[Jkid]

3. The death penalty has been abolished for a long time.

It's cheaper to imprison them until old age.

[WatsonT]

5. Rope is cheap

trees are free.

I have no sympathy for pirates.

[devils chaplain]

4. It's a very serious, life and death matter....

... but I still can't help but find any headline involving "pirates" amusing. It's like being transported to the 1600's or something. But, for the ones who don't "walk the plank", a remote island pirate prison sounds somewhat fitting.

[saras]

6. It's only funny until they come for YOUR mp3s