Spain won't budge on nabbed pirates despite hostage drama

SPAIN said yesterday it would not free two captured pirates as demanded by fellow brigands who are holding a Spanish trawler and 33 crew members off the coast of Somalia.

The trawler's captain told Spanish media on Thursday that the pirates on board had threatened to start killing the hostages.

Deputy Defense Minister Constantino Mendez said yesterday the two Somali men were captured in connection with the hijacking of the Spanish-registered tuna boat Alakrana on October 2 in the Indian Ocean and brought to Madrid.

He told Spanish National Radio: "The situation is not negotiable."

However, he seemed to leave open a possibility of transferring them to the court system of another country.

Pirates holding the Alakrana took three crew members ashore to Somalia on Thursday, the Defense Ministry said.

The wives of two crew members who spoke to their husbands on Thursday said the pirates were demanding the release of the two in custody in Madrid as a condition for letting the ship and its crew go.

On Thursday night, the skipper of the Alakrana, Ricardo Blach, told Spanish television the heavily armed pirates on board had threatened to kill the three crew members taken ashore if there was no progress in freeing the two men.

"They told us an hour ago that if there is no movement relating to those who are in Spain, then they would begin by killing those three in three days' time, and then they would take another three, and so on," Blach said.

He said about 30 pirates aboard the Alakrana consumed drugs and were equipped with machine guns, bazookas, grenade launchers and handguns. "If you say anything to them, they put a pistol to your forehead," he said.

Yesterday relatives of the crew issued an appeal for the Spanish government to free the detained pirates.

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