Pirates hijack Indonesian cargo ship

Pirates hijack Indonesian cargo ship

Associated Press, Kuala Lumpur

Pirates hijacked a tin-laden Indonesian ship traveling to
Singapore and held the crew captive for two days while unloading
the cargo in a Malaysian port, a maritime watchdog said on
Tuesday.

The pirates, believed to be Indonesians, fired gunshots at the
ship and boarded it Friday shortly after it had left Muntok port
on the southern tip of Sumatra island, said Noel Choong, head of
the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in
Kuala Lumpur.

They ordered the crew to sail to Pasir Gudang port in
Malaysia's southern Johor state, where the vessel docked for two
days while the crew hauled the cargo into a warehouse, Choong
said.

"The crew members were warned they would be killed if they
didn't cooperate," Choong said.

The pirates eventually took the ship back into Indonesian
waters and escaped in a speedboat, leaving the crew uninjured,
Choong said.

After the incident was reported, officials checked the
warehouse and found the cargo intact.

"We are baffled over what happened," Choong said. "They went
through all that trouble to steal the cargo, but it was still
there in Pasir Gudang."

However, the incident raised concerns about port security in
Pasir Gudang because the pirates had somehow obtained documents
that allowed them to book a berth where the vessel could dock and
discharge the metal shipment, Choong said.

Malaysian authorities have begun preliminary investigations,
Choong said.

Details of the ship's name and its number of crew members were
not immediately available.

Indonesia's waters are the world's most pirate-afflicted. Last
year, 93 attacks -- more than a quarter of the worldwide total --
were in Indonesia. But that figure did not include another 37
attacks in the Straits of Malacca, a key shipping lane between
Sumatra and peninsular Malaysia.