Pirate attack an inside job: Police
Pirate attack an inside job: Police
Malaysian police announced in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday they have
arrested two crewmen from a tanker which was hijacked by
Indonesian pirates this week, saying they believed it was an
inside job.
Ten pirates boarded the tanker loaded with diesel off
Malaysia's Langkawi island on Tuesday but their planned attack
was foiled when a quick-thinking sailor raced off in their
speedboat, stranding them on the vessel.
He returned with five police patrol boats and after a tense
standoff, the pirates aboard the Malaysian tanker were persuaded
to surrender.
Kedah state police chief Mohamed Supian Amat told The Star
newspaper that an Indonesian crew member and another unidentified
officer were believed to have alerted the pirates to the ship,
which was traveling from Singapore to Myanmar.
"We believe this is an inside job. This hijacking was well
planned," he told the English-language daily.
Deputy police chief Musa Hassan said international syndicates
could be involved in the hijacking of the tanker in the Malacca
Strait. Their involvement was suspected because they have to find
a source to dispose of the diesel, he was quoted as saying by the
Bernama news agency in Langkawi island where the pirates are
being detained.
Musa also said divers have been deployed to search for weapons
believed to have been thrown overboard when police raided the
ship.
"There is a possibility that the pirates planned to hijack the
ship for the cargo, taking into account high oil prices," said
Noel Choong, head of the Piracy Reporting Center of the London-
based International Maritime Bureau.
Police must investigate who the attackers are, if they belong
to the same group involved in kidnapping crews for ransom, when
they started the scheme, and which syndicates if any are involved
in the attack, he said.
Choong said a new syndicate may have emerged with a plan to
hijack fuel cargos, noting that in the late 1990s there were many
similar cases where pirates hijacked a ship to transfer the cargo
to another tanker.
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. Governments in the region also believe it is tempting
for terrorists. -- AFP