SOMALI pirates received a ransom of $US7 million ($6.6 million) for the release of two Spanish hostages held for four-and-a-half months, a pirate claims.
"The money was left by air on an Italian building (controlled by pirates)", said Abdi Yare, a pirate operating from the northeast Somali port of Hobyo.
An elder in Hobyo, Mohamed Duale, said the ransom payment was dropped by helicopter.
"The ransom is the biggest I've ever heard of for the release of just two hostages," said Yare, reached by telephone from Mogadishu.
"The two hostages are free and waiting to be taken to their country."
The Spanish foreign ministry said it could not confirm the release, and the media reports quoting government sources gave no details.
The online edition of El Pais, citing government sources, reported that the captain of the Vega 5, Juan Alfonso Rey Echeverri, and first officer Jose Alfonso Garcia were safe aboard a vessel of their employer, the Pecanova company.
They were the only westerners aboard a Mozambican fishing vessel seized in the Mozambique Channel at the end of December.
The Indian navy had recovered the 140-tonne Vega 5 in March but the two Spaniards were not aboard. Photographs showed them on dry land surrounded by armed men.
Thirteen of the 22 crew members - 12 Mozambicans and an Indonesian - were rescued after jumping into the water during the Indian raid.
The other crew members, seven Mozambicans and two Indonesians, are missing and feared dead, according to Ecoterra, an advocacy group monitoring piracy in the Indian Ocean.
Heavily armed pirates using speedboats operating from lawless Somalia have been attacking ships over a vast area for years despite the presence of dozens of warships from navies around the world.
The largest ransoms paid to date, according to pirates, have been in exchange for the release of oil supertankers.
A record was set last November when $US9 million was paid for the release of the Samho Dream, captured the previous April with a crew of five South Koreans and 19 Filipinos and a cargo of Iraqi oil headed for the US.
Source: AFP
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