conviction – Officer of the Watch

The Penalties for Piracy

Oceans Beyond Piracy project released last month a discussion paper on the penalties imposed by prosecuting nations on arrested pirates. According to the study, ten nations on four continents have convicted Somalis who were involved in piracy and armed robbery at sea which began in 2008, and at least six other nations have cases pending. Any nation can arrest suspected pirates on the high seas yet international law defines only the crime and not the penalty to be imposed upon the accused individual.

On May 24 a federal jury in Miami convicted a Miami-based ship surveyor for lying to the Coast Guard and for falsely certifying the safety of ships at sea, announced Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice; Wifredo A. Ferrer, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; Rear Admiral William D. Baumgartner, Commander, 7th Coast Guard District; and Jonathan Sall, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service.

The ship surveyor, was convicted by a federal jury in Miami of three counts of making false statements to the U.S. Coast Guard and one count of obstruction of an agency proceeding. The defendant faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison on each count.