Four Somali nationals who were released from Kenyan jails are expected to arrive in Mogadishu on Tuesday.
The government has been carrying initiatives to release Somali national in jails of the neighbouring countries.
The four men spent ten years behind bars after they were wrongly accused by the international naval task forces in Somalia waters of being pirates.
They were later on transferred to Kenya where they were prosecuted and transferred to serve their jail terms in Kamiti Maximum Prison in Nairobi.
The men claimed that they were fishermen and not pirates as accused by Kenyan authorities.
“We are fishermen who are jailed in Mombasa for a long time, we were kidnapped from our sea without committing any crime,” said the men.
Speaking to the media, Somalia’s ambassador to Kenya, Ali Mohamed Sheikh said the four who served their jails will be repatriated soon.
“The four will return to the country and there is an agreement between the two countries, that ensures all of them are taken back to Somalia,” said Sheikh.
The ambassador said the government will soon release two other batches from jails
“There will be 25 others who will be released in August and four more who complete their jail in February 2019, so these two groups are the last group of Somali nationals accused of involving privacy,” he affirmed.
Kenya is one of a few countries that are prosecuting pirates, alongside Seychelles and Mauritius.
But the cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute and take a long time to complete.
Hundreds of Somali pirate suspects are in prisons around the world.
Some of them have been already been convicted while others are still waiting to be prosecuted.
Piracy at sea has declined massively since 2011, falling 60 percent for the first time in seven years, According to Maritime reports.
The drop in piracy incidents is a relief to shipping companies using the Indian Ocean, that have been the target of pirates.
Discussion about this post