'Simple Fishermen'
Aden (Yemen): "We're simple fishermen making our living with hard work," insists 26-year-old Ahmed Abdallah Mussa, trying - and failing - to look innocent. He and 21 other alleged Somali pirates, captured by Russian and Indian naval personnel during the past five months and handed over to authorities in Yemen, now share the overcrowded cells of the central jail in the port city of Aden with thieves and murderers.
They obviously feel superior to their fellow inmates. Somali pirates see themselves as Rambo and Robin Hood wrapped into one. They have no feelings of guilt. On the contrary, their recent confrontation with the US Navy only strengthened their conviction that impoverished Somalis were waging a just struggle against big, wealthy powers whose trawlers had depleted Somalia's waters of fish.
Image: A picture released by the French army on April 10, 2009 showspirates and hostages on the Tanit, a boat seized off the Somali coast bypirates on April 4. Picture copyright AP. Unauthorised reproduction prohibited.
Text: IANS
