Saudi insurer to pay $20m ransom to Somali pirates

A Saudi insurance company will pay Somali pirates a $20-million-ransom to free a hijacked ship and its 14-member crew held hostage for five months, a newspaper reported Monday.

"The owner of the Al-Nisr Al-Saudi ship said the insurance company has agreed to pay the $20 million ransom to win the release of the ship and its 14-member crew," Arab News reported.

The pirates had been torturing the crew of 13 Sri Lankans and one Greek as well as threatening to kill them unless the ransom was paid, the daily quoted the ship's owner, Kamal Arri, as saying.

Arri said his company was waiting for the Saudi government's approval "to allow the quick payment of the ransom by the insurance company."

"The consulates of Sri Lanka and Greece have been contacting us, inquiring about the safety of crew members," he said in the English-language daily, adding that his company had so far lost about $8 million as a result of the hijacking.

Also Monday, Somali pirates seized a Panamanian freighter with 23 crew from Egypt, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the Gulf of Aden, European anti-piracy forces said.

Early in the morning, the freighter indicated that it was captured "under small arms fire from a pirate attack, and minutes later she reported pirates onboard," the EUNVFOR Somalia mission said in a statement.

A helicopter was despatched, "but pirates had already taken over the command of the 17,300-ton freighter," it said, adding that attempts to make contact with the vessel failed.

Agencies