Le Ponant Pirate Attack - The Released Hostages and Pirates Speak

Six of the Somali pirates, who captured the French yacht Le Ponant and held its 30 crew hostage last week, have told a French judicial source that they were part of a maritime militia group with a written code of conduct. Said the source to AFP: "We are in the presence of a sea militia, a gang which has a leader, is given shelter by villagers who feed them and supply them with khat" (a stimulant).

The pirates, who said that their group was based out of the village of Garaad-Ade, were captured in the Somali desert on Friday by French troops. This was after holding the Le Ponant and its crew hostage for a week, and running with some (likely most) of the ransom. The Somali pirates were extradited and flown to France this week, where they will face trial.

The Paris judicial source said the men detained in Paris have told them that in early April, members of the militia borrowed two speedboats from villagers, saying they wanted to go fishing and defend their territorial waters. "They first went on board a Yemeni trawler which had a 27-strong crew whom they took hostage," said the Paris source. That Yemeni trawler became their base ship.

The men were boating through the Gulf of Aden on April 4th, when they spotted the luxury yacht Le Ponant, the 32-cabin 3 masted sailing yacht, with only crew on board. The Le Ponant was sailing to the Mediterranean from the Seychelles at the time.

The Somali pirates thought they had hit the jackpot, according to the testimony of the prisoners as relayed by our source in Paris. Three of the pirates headed for the Le Ponant in a speedboat. The men fired automatic weapons at the yacht when the crew of the Le Ponant aimed firehoses at the pirates.

According to one crew, 30-year-old waiter Gilbert Glorioso, they believed the Yemeni trawler to be a fishing vessel until it launched two speed boats. "We only had firehose on the ship, so we did not have a fighting chance."

The second speedboat, with six pirates aboard, joined the first three pirates and together they swarmed on board the yacht. The pirates abandoned the trawler, and quickly took control of Le Ponant. The female crew members of the yacht were put in a hold, where they stayed for the first two days of what was to be a week in captivity.

Piracy is a very lucrative business off Somalia's coast, and most kidnappers are said to treat their hostages well, in anticipation of a well paid ransom. The police found the Somali pirates' manual of conduct on board the Le Ponant. The manual banned mistreatment of hostages, notably sexual abuse.

Le Ponant then set sail for Garaad (a village in Somalia's region of Puntland) with the pirates at the yacht's helm. The French navy vessels, as we know, were following at a discrete distance by this time.

When the yacht arrived two days later, about 70 villagers showed up to offer services for guarding the yacht and its crew, according to the testimony relayed by the same judicial source. Since the pirates feared attacks by rival clans, more guns were brought on board Le Ponant at that time.

We are told that a total of up to 30 people, both pirates and villagers, took turns at guard duty on the Le Ponant. The pirates settled in for the next few days, even bringing goats on board and holding a barbecue on the luxury yacht.

A Le Ponant crew member named Abder, who was among those kept hostage, says the pirates brought the four live goats aboard and slaughtered them on the luxury vessel for food, and that "the pirates killed time cleaning their weapons." Abder (a pastry chef on the luxury yacht) stated in an interview with the daily Le Parisien that the hostages were followed everywhere, including to the bathroom, "everything aboard had to be negotiated."

The Paris judicial source said that the pirates also tried to enforce discipline among themselves. When one of the pirate's guns went off on accident, and Le Ponant's doctor narrowly avoided a gun-shot, the pirates' leader immediately sent the guilty party off the yacht.

Crew members of Le Ponant kept hostage told the media that the pirates did not at any point abuse them, although a crew member said they did shoot a villager dead when he he refused to give them khat. Khat is a plant which produces a stimulant effect (like amphetimines), and is known to be moderately addictive.

The ransom for the hostages of Le Ponant was reportedly set at around $2 million (US). The ransom money was handed over to the pirates, and the crew released and taken aboard a French navy ship. The crew then flew on to Paris, where they arrived Monday.

Soon after the ransom money was handed over, French special forces captured the men now being questioned in Paris, while they fleed by car into the Somali desert. It appears as though these 6 men were just part of a larger group of pirates that carried out the hostage-taking, evident in the fact that they only had about $200,000 on them when captured. In other words, it looks as though some of the pirates may have gotten away with most of the ransom.

The governor of the Mugug region of Somalia (where the raid was carried out) said Thursday that four of the men kept in Paris are innocent. Simply khat traders selling their goods to the two pirates.

In 2007, 236 acts of maritime piracy were recorded, over 30 of them off the Somali coast.

- Kim Hampton exclusively for YachtPals.com 

Click here to read more articles about the Le Ponant pirate attack.

• Photo: Le Ponant hostages released by pirates
• Video: Hostages released from the pirates on Le Ponant speak to French media. Video in French.