Ministers from G8 industrialized nations agreed on Saturday to work toward a legal framework for the trial of Somali pirates, seen as a major obstacle to policing the dangerous shipping lanes off the Horn of Africa.
Justice and interior ministers from the world's eight leading industrial powers, concluding a two-day meeting in Rome, pledged to help strengthen the criminal justice system in poor regions affected by piracy, such as east Africa.
They also recognized the need for agreements between countries that arrest pirates and those able to prosecute them -- often Western nations with more developed judiciaries.
Several G8 countries are taking part in EU and NATO naval task forces combating piracy in one of the world's busiest shipping routes off the coast of Somalia, where the number of vessels hijacked by pirates has risen sharply in recent months.
But captured pirates present a judicial headache for Western nations, which often lack official jurisdiction. Some forces simply release captured pirates, often poor local fishermen.
"We want to strengthen our ability to investigate and prosecute this crime and recover the assets illegally obtained through piracy," Italian Justice Minister Angelino Alfano, whose country chairs the G8 this year, told a news conference.
If pirates are tried in the West, they might be able to claim asylum but if they are tried in war-torn Somalia they are unlikely to receive a fair trial, experts say.
Neighboring Kenya has accepted some detainees but it is reluctant to receive a deluge of piracy cases and trials there have already received a legal challenge from Germany.
French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said Western nations needed to have the legal tools to go after the masterminds of piracy, who were often powerful international businessmen.
Italy had said on Friday there was support for its proposal to establish international tribunals for piracy, but this was not explicitly mentioned in the final statement.
CONFISCATIONS
The document called for more cooperation in confiscating the assets of organized crime groups, from drug cartels to pirate networks, particularly with developing countries.
Ministers agreed on the need to tackle Internet crime, such as theft of financial and personal information online, child pornography and the use of social networking sites by criminal and terrorist organizations. They called for the creation of an international blacklist of pedophile Web pages.
Ministers expressed concern the economic crisis could increase the numbers of poor illegal immigrants seeking to reach industrialized nations, and called for the speedy international introduction of electronic machine-readable passports.
Italy has been criticized by civil rights groups for returning to Libya boats full of would-be migrants intercepted at sea. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said this would be discussed at a European Union summit next week, but the policy had slashed the number of migrant boats reaching south Italy.
A march through central Rome organized by several organizations in protest at the ministerial meeting drew some three thousand protesters, some chanting slogans like "We are all illegal migrants."
The members of the G8 group are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States.
Source: Reuters
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