News / Disbelief as court orders France to pay compensation to captured Somali pirates

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Anti-piracy campaigners have labelled as “repugnant” a judgment handed down late last week in the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) ordering the French government to pay thousands of euros in compensation to convicted Somali pirates.

Nine pirates, who had been captured by French special forces after two French-flagged vessels were hijacked off the Somali coast in April and June of 2008, have won an appeal that they were “deprived of their liberty” in the time it took for the pirates ...