A UN envoy proposed special courts be set up rapidly in the Somali enclaves of Somali land and Puntland, and in Tanzania, to try captured pirates who are costing the world billions of dollars.
Pirates based in Somalia have turned the busy shipping lanes off the coast of the lawless Horn of Africa nation into some of the most dangerous waters on earth.
"Pirates are becoming the masters of the Indian Ocean," the envoy, Jack Lang, told the UN Security Council.
Many pirates are captured by international warships trying to combat the scourge but 90 percent of them are then released because no place can be found to prosecute them, Lang said. With conflict-torn Somalia lacking the legal infrastructure to try pirates, Kenya and the Seychelles have prosecuted dozens of suspects handed over by foreign navies. But both have said they would have difficulties coping if all the seized pirates were sent to them, Reuters reports.
Lang, special adviser to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Somali piracy, recommended specialized courts be set up within eight months in Somaliland and Puntland in northern Somalia, and at Arusha in Tanzania. They would use Somali law.
