The families of the fishermen hold in the Indian Ocean met Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Tuesday to ask him to extradite the two Somali pirates jailed in Spain to Somalia.
A meeting of the relatives of the crew members of the hijacked trawler Alakrana with the Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero started at 5.00 pm on Tuesday, after the families met the president of the Spanish High Court Angel Juanes. They want the central government to send back the two arrested Somali jailed in Spain to Somalia, as the hijackers of the Alakrana require to continue with the negotiations.
Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Angel Moratinos spoke at the House of Representatives at the end of the crisis cabinet meeting to analyse the current situation of the hijacked tuna boat and said that the Government will "spare no effort" to solve the situation.
Moratinos also said that the Somali PM Omar Abdurashid Ali Sharmake has instructed his interior minister to carry out all "reasonable steps" to put an end to the hijacking in Somali waters.
The relatives of those captured also want to met the Spanish Royal House, although they have still no response.
Indeed, pirate Willy Abdu’s attorney, Francisco Javier Diaz Aparicio, on Tuesday talked about another legal possibility: deporting the pirates jailed by the High Court to Somalia. As he explained to the Basque public radio station Radio Euskadi, the extradition would be a solution “in the long term†and it would last “8 or 9 monthsâ€, while the expulsion “would be solved in 3 days.â€
Aparicio Diaz on Tuesday morning met the Office of the Spanish High Court to talk about this possibility.
The public prosecutors replied that they are waiting for instructions, but they also said the accusation of hijacking, among many others, is not disappearing.
Spanish Justice Minister Francisco Camaño on Monday said that the government is studying a possible extradition and that there are two choices: to judge the arrested pirates in Somalia, or to do it in Spain. Subsequently, they would serve their sentence in the African country.