Eleven Indonesian pirates, who were arrested after hijacking the Malaysian vessel Zafirah in November 2012, will be extradited to Indonesia today via Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday.
Yesterday Colonel Cao Xuan Trang, deputy commander of the Border Guard of the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, had a meeting with Colonel Guntur Setyanto from the Indonesian Police High Command and  Indonesian Consul General  in HCM City Rachmaida Ginting about the extradition.
A Vietnam marine police unit seized the pirates and rescued nine crew members of the ship 40 nautical miles off Vung Tau City on Novemner 22, after receiving a notice from the International Maritime Bureau in Malaysia, Colonel Trang told the Indonesian officials at the meeting.
Trang also said that during the investigation process, Vietnamese agencies detected  three other people involved in the piracy, two of whom are Indonesian citizens.
The nine rescued crew members include four from Indonesia and five from Myanmar, the official said.
Colonel Guntur Setyanto said the culprits will be punished in accordance with the laws of Indonesia, while Consul General Rachmaida Ginting thanked Vietnamese concerned agencies for looking after the seized pirates.
The Consul General later visited the detainees at the Chi Linh border guard station in Vung Tau City. All of them were in normal health condition.
As previously reported, eleven pirates attacked and commandeered a Malaysian-flagged ship, forcing nine sailors to leave the ship in a life raft off Vietnam’s southern Vung Tau City on November 21, 2012.
The pirates then changed the ship’s name, which was painted on the vessel’s side, to Sea Horse to avoid detection.
They also changed the ship’s IMO (International Maritime Organization) identification number from 9016387 to 9016081, and destroyed some navigation and communications tools on the ship.
The nine sailors were rescued the same day and the pirates were arrested one day later.
Via: http://tuoitrenews.vn/
