…actually got the justice they deserved after all?

Heretofore, I was laboring under the impression, based on what I’d read, that these scalliwags (ARGH!) were going to end up being bound over to some mares-eat-oats liberal international court out of Kenya.

However, that was not to be.

The pirates seized by a Russian warship off the coast of Somalia have been released because of “imperfections” in international law, the Defense Ministry said Friday, a claim that sparked skepticism — and even suspicion the pirates might have been killed.

One can only hope.

Authorities initially said the pirates would be brought to Russia to face criminal charges for hijacking a Russian oil tanker. But Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Alexei Kuznetsov told The Associated Press on Friday that the pirates had been released.

Kuznetsov declined to elaborate on the purported legal flaws that prompted the release and it was unclear how the seizure of the tanker might be legally different from last year’s alleged hijacking of the Russian-crewed freighter Arctic Sea.

That vessel allegedly was seized by pirates in the Baltic Sea off Sweden and went missing for several days before a Russian warship tracked it down off West Africa. The eight alleged pirates were flown to Moscow to face eventual trial.

The Law of the Seas Convention, to which Russia is a signatory, says the courts of a country that seizes a pirated vessel on the high seas have the right to decide what penalties will be imposed.

My emphasis added, and that’s what I’m talkin’ about!.

It is the job of each government to protect its citizens and their, or said government’s property, right?

If I may note, through the Cold War years, a lot of entities, governments, terrorist organizations and insurrectionists, had no problem messing around, or worse, with most western nations, citizens and so forth. The Brits, the French, anybody who got in the way got revolution, terrorism, heartbreak of every description… But rarely the Soviets.

Why? Because they were known to retaliate harshly in response to attacks.

So perhaps Russia is continuing in the same “smite us on one cheek, we’ll smash you on the other” policy.

Looking out for their citizens.

When the Soviets captured Mujahedin guerillas during their war in Afghanistan thirty years ago, they didn’t use the GITMO approach, giving the prisoners Korans, religiously agreeable cuisine or an arrow on the cell floor showing, for prayer purposes, the direction of Mecca.

Au contraire, they beat them, tortured them brutally and generally treated them like bloody pieces of inconsequential meat.

I think that, if it is indeed the case that the Russians meted out a bullet in the back of the head and a push over the side to each of the captured pirates, they were using sound startegy and common sense by sending a clear message to the pirates’ colleagues who are still out there: Don’t mess with Russian vessels.

But what to do with pirates has become a murky problem. Some countries are wary of hauling in pirates for trial for fear of being saddled with them after they serve prison terms, and some propose that pirates taken to Kenya for trial.
Kuznetsov appeared to echo those concerns when asked why the pirates who seized the tanker were released.

“Why should we feed some pirates?” he asked. He did not give specifics of the pirates’ release, but the official news agency ITAR-Tass quoted a ministry source as saying they were “sent home,” unarmed and without navigational devices, in the small boats they had used to approach the tanker.

Which might mean: “They’ll possibly succumb to the vagaries of weather and the ocean, dying at sea, never to be seen again.”

Good!