Chinese police arrest RI pirates

GUANGZHOU, China (Xinhua): Police in south China's coastal city of Shantou, Guangdong Province, have arrested 10 Indonesian pirates who allegedly hijacked a Thai oil tanker off Teiman Island near Singapore.

On the night of June 17, marine police patrolling the Nan'ao Island near Shantou of Guangdong spotted the tanker.

The suspicious foreign vessel Zhengyang No. 1 had no logbook or documents for the 2,000 tons diesel on board, it was found.

"The hull was covered with fresh paint erasing the name of the vessel," patrol police said, adding that "It looked like a foreign pirate ship."

During police interrogation, the gang leader Atan Naim confessed that his crew were Indonesian.

Atan said that his crew attacked the Thai oil tanker SIAM XANXAI in the early morning of June 9. The oil tanker carried diesel oil loaded in Singapore the day before and was on its way back to Thailand.

The pirates replete with knives and sabres approached the Thai oil tanker in two motorboats. They took a Thai crewman hostage who could speak English and drove the other 15 crew members off the tanker.

The gang leader said they destroyed all documents, repainted the tanker and then tried to navigate the tanker along the Malaysian-Indonesian-Taiwan route.

But they were caught on June 17 when they arrived near Nan'ao of Shantou, Guangdong Province.

The International Criminal Police Organization notified police in Shantou that the 15 Thai crewmen were released safely near the coast of Indonesia.