Nairobi - Interpol was compiling a database of fingerprints, photographs and other personal information on Somali pirate suspects to help fight piracy at sea, the agency said on Wednesday.
The information can be accessed by any of the agency's 187 member countries.
"Without systematically collecting photographs, fingerprints and DNA profiles of arrested pirates and comparing them internationally, it is simply not possible to establish their true identity or to make connections that would otherwise be missed," Interpol's executive director of Police Services, Jean-Michel Louboutin, said on Wednesday at the agency's headquarters in Lyon, France.
Despite international patrols, piracy has exploded in the Gulf of Aden and along Somalia's 3 060km coastline - the longest in Africa.
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Pirates are able to operate freely because Somalia has had no effective central government in nearly 20 years.
The international community is grappling with how and where to try captured pirates. The US, Britain and the EU have signed agreements allowing for piracy suspects to be handed over to Kenya for trial.
Many nations are wary of hauling in pirates for trial for fear of being saddled with them after they serve out prison terms. There is talk of setting up a special piracy tribunal there akin to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
There are doubts that Kenya, which is still recovering from post-election turmoil in 2007 that left more than 1 000 people dead, would be able to handle the costly and complicated task of trying all or even most cases that emerge from the piracy crisis. - Sapa-AP
- This article was originally published on page 7 of Cape Times on June 18, 2009
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