Attack on Malaysian tanker foiled as crewman races off with

Attack on Malaysian tanker foiled as crewman races off with pirates' boat

Agencies Kuala Lumpur

An attack by Indonesian pirates on a Malaysian tanker was foiled on Tuesday when a quick-thinking crewman from the vessel leapt into the robbers' boat and sped off in it to fetch the police, officials said.

The tanker, which was carrying diesel from Malaysia's Port Klang to Myanmar, was boarded before dawn by 10 pirates off the northern island of Langkawi in the Malacca Strait.

"All the suspects got up on the tanker and they left their boat beside the tanker ship. Then one of the crew of the tanker ship just stole the boat," an officer with the Langkawi marine police base told AFP.

Leaving the pirates stranded on the 4,629-tonne tanker, owned by Malaysian company Netline, the crew member raced to the marine police base and raised the alert.

Police arrived at the scene a little after midday and managed to persuade the suspects, all of whom are Indonesians, to give up about three hours later.

"The pirates threatened to blow up the boat during negotiations but the police finally got them to surrender," Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center, told AFP.

All 19 crew members on board the tanker were safe, although the captain is believed to have sustained a light head injury, said a northern region marine police officer.

Mokhtar Othman, a northern marine police spokesman, was quoted by AP as saying on Tuesday that officials will investigate whether the pirates were linked to those who abducted two Japanese and one Filipino from a Japanese-registered tug boat near the same location in March. The abductees were later released unharmed.

Police in Langkawi were interrogating the pirates, Mokhtar said, adding that it was not immediately clear whether the attackers' motive was robbery or kidnapping.

The attack was the seventh this year in the strait, a pirate- infested route bordered by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Officials recorded 37 attacks last year in the waterway.

The Malacca Strait is one of the world's most important waterways, with 50,000 ships carrying about one-third of the globe's trade passing through it each year.

However the strait, 960 kilometers long and 1.2 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, is notoriously vulnerable to pirate attacks and governments in the region also believe it is tempting for terrorists.

In an effort to stem pirate attacks, the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have launched co-ordinated patrols and opened the door to technical assistance from the United States.

Despite this, pirates have continued their efforts, Choong said.

"There have been a number of attacks despite co-ordinated patrols by the three countries," he said.

More than 50,000 vessels each year ply the strait, which links Asia to Europe and the Middle East, carrying half the world's oil and a third of global commerce.