RIYADH, Dec 10(Arab News): Somali pirates have freed a hijacked Saudi Arabian-flagged tanker and its 14 crew members after nine months of captivity, senior maritime officials said here Thursday. Information about the next port of call of the MT Al-Nisr Al-Saudi after its release was not immediately known.
"The tanker, with a dead weight of 5,136 tons, and its crew — one Greek and 13 Sri Lankans — were all safe," Paddy O'Kennedy, a spokesman of the European Union Naval Force, said by telephone on Thursday.
Arab News contacted some officials of the Jeddah-based International Bunkering Company (IBCO), which owns the tanker, but they declined to comment. IBCO has been working with their insurer, Saudi IACI Cooperative Insurance Company (SALAMA), to secure an early release of the bunker barge.
Asked about the condition of the 13 Sri Lankan crew members, W.A. Sarath Kumara, minister in the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh, said they are safe but that he had no information about the status of the tanker. He said the Sri Lankans will most likely reach Jeddah within a fortnight.
The tanker, which was hijacked while sailing from Japan to Jeddah on March 3, was freed after a ransom was paid, said Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program.
"The amount of ransom paid to Somali pirates for securing the release was not known immediately," said Mwangura.
Some of the reports published earlier indicated that the pirates were demanding and negotiating a $20-million ransom to release the tanker.
Maritime industry sources said that the amount of ransom cannot be so high or to the tune of $20 million, pointing out that the Al-Nisr Al-Saudi is considerably smaller than the Saudi-owned leviathan Sirus Star, which was released in January 2009 after the payment of a $8-million ransom.
Somali pirates make tens of millions of dollars in ransom from seizing ships, including tankers, in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, despite the efforts of foreign navies to clamp down on such attacks. Saudi Arabia had pledged to fight piracy. Riyadh has also signed a major maritime code of conduct that calls for revision of national legislation to criminalize piracy and armed robbery against ships.
Ecoterra International, an environmental NGO monitoring maritime activity in the region, said Somali pirates are holding 35 foreign vessels and at least 649 hostages.
One act of piracy out of every two worldwide is carried out off the coasts of Somalia or in the Gulf of Aden, according to the International maritime Bureau.