Piracy suspects being taken to court in Kenya: Mauritius has turned down a request from the international community to try and detain Somali pirate suspects.
The refusal by Mauritius to host a special prison for piracy convicts means Kenya will continue to try and jail suspected pirates.
Mauritius turned down a request from the international community, championed by the US, France and Britain, who requested the country to allow them set up a special prison to detain pirates captured on the Indian Ocean especially the Somali territorial waters.
Other than setting up the detention centre – similar to the infamous US-runGuantanamoBay in Cuba – Mauritius was also requested to host a special tribunal comprising local and foreign judges to try captured pirates.
The move could have offered relief to Kenya‘s judicial system which has taken up various cases of suspected pirates captured outside Kenya‘s jurisdiction since 2006, despite the fact the country is struggling with a backlog of cases.
According to recent statistics from the judiciary, Kenya has about 53,000 prisoners against a national capacity of 16,000, and the backlog of cases is over 870,000.
Among these cases are those of suspected pirates arrested either on the international or Somali waters.
"Mauritius parliament has declined the request to allow the setting up of the pirates detention camp. This means that Kenya will continue to bear the cost of presiding over such cases that do not directly involve its tax payers," said East Africa Seafarers Assistance programme co-ordinator Andrew Mwangura.
