An anti-piracy official in Somalia's transitional government said that a cargo ship seized by pirates had been carrying weapons, a charge denied by the owners of the ship's cargo."On November 7 a cargo ship carrying a wide range of weapons was seized by Somali buccaneers," said the official, Ismail Haji Noor, in a statement.He said he had informed the EU's anti-piracy operation, Atalanta, of the capture of the ship and about "the unfortunate possibility that the captors themselves could now offload the weapons and bring them to shore - to either use or sell them".He said that despite his warning, no naval vessel in the area had sailed to Garacad, where the "weapons ship" is now moored, to investigate or prevent the arms from being offloaded.The Panama-flagged dry cargo carrier MV ALMEZAAN en route to Somalia's Mogadishu Port was captured by Somali sea-shifta near Garacad on the country's eastern coast, and the UAE rightly protested that some media had then reported it would have been a UAE-flagged vessel only because it sailed from Ajman port north of Dubai."The ship that was captured by Somali gunmen left the United Arab Emirates on October 24 with a consignment of food and other commercial items," said the trader, Abdi Ali Farah, the chairman of Juba General Trading Company.The trader who says he owns much of the cargo on the vessel has denied that there were arms aboard. He said the vessel had been carrying sugar, construction material and assorted general cargo."I have the manifest of the commodities that are in the ship. It was to be off-loaded at Mogadishu main port, which is under the control of Somali Transitional Government and African Union troops," he lamented to AFP. He, however wouldn't say why he had calculated over 14 days for the vessel to reach Mogadishu and why it only arrived after 14 days in north-east Somalia, where it was captured.The Almezaan carried 18 people when it was seized, but is operated by a 17-strong crew, comprising of 15 Indian citizens and two citizens of Pakistan, while it has transpired that the additional one person, a Somali who was captured together with the vessel, is not a member of the crew but a mere escort for the sensitive part of the cargo. On board of the vessel. Isse Abdi Ahmed, insisted that the ship was not carrying weapons and said over phone that they are negotiating a ransom demand with the owners. Mohammed Iqbal, the ship manager confirmed this from Dubai.The demand is an exorbitantly high ransom of $3 million in order to free the small vessel of only 2,000 tonnes.A spokesman and agent of the trading group, Abdirisaq Abdulkadir Sabriye, told the Al-Shahid news website in Somalia that: "Our ship has carried 3,000 tons of general business materials from Dubai", while the operator of the dry cargo carrier and the recipient of the cargo insisted to AllAfrica that the vessel was delivering "more than 2, 000 tonnes of mass consumption products, mainly electronic devices. If the discrepancy of 1,000 tonnes reflects the weapons consignment is not yet known.The agent actually admitted that it was the pirates who "said to us pay ransom or we will say that the ship was carrying weapons". The captors, however, were not yet interested to release such specific details, because they didn't want to attract the naval forces and other groups interested in the weapons, Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme explained.It is also known that the Terrorists Al Shabaab Islamist movement showed such serious interest in this vessel and its cargo that it decided to send large units to Garacad," the Russian maritime website SOVFRACHT reported and concluded that the pirates will most likely appropriate the vessel's possible cargo of weapons and ammunition. A reduction in the ransom is then expected.Some Background
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