Suspected pirate's odyssey leads from Somalia to Spain (News Feature)

By Sinikka Tarvainen Oct 27, 2009, 11:28 GMT

Madrid - A young Somali man has become the main character in a Spanish judicial drama featuring pirates, fishermen, baffled judges and a desperate mother.

The suspected pirate was flown to Spain on October 12, 10 days after the piracy ring he allegedly belonged to seized a Spanish fishing vessel in the Indian Ocean.

Two weeks later, the youth known as Abdou Willy is being sent from one detention facility to another while medical experts keep changing their minds about whether he is a minor or not.

Opinions are equally divided on whether the Somali, whose real name is usually given as Cabdiweli Cabdullahi, is a villain or a victim.

Abdou Willy was born in a village in southern Somalia, according to his parents, whom the daily El Mundo located in the lawless Horn of Africa country with no functional government.

Since the ouster of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia has been bogged down in clan fighting and, more recently, an Islamist insurgency.

Abdou Willy's prospects for the future were dim.

He received no formal schooling, worked on the family farm from a young age, fled warlords with his family, and ended up in a displaced people's camp after drought hit his region, according to the El Mundo report.

Unsurprisingly, many young Somalis in similar situations are tempted by piracy in the country where it has become a big business, with pirate chiefs reportedly making fortunes from ransoms worth millions of dollars.

Nearly 150 piracy attacks occurred off Somalia in the first three quarters of 2009, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

The piracy organization Burcad Badeed offered Abdou Willy 2,500 dollars for helping to seize the Basque trawler Alakrana, according to Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon.

The young man's parents say he was 'deceived' by the pirates, but a pirates' representative told El Mundo that Abdou Willy knew perfectly well what he was getting into.

On October 2, a group of 13 pirates hijacked the Alakrana, which was taken to near the Somali port of Harardhere, a so-called pirates' nest.

Two days later, Abdou Willy and one of his companions left the trawler on board a skiff. They were captured by a Spanish frigate which formed part of international anti-piracy military patrols in the area.

Some analysts feel Spain should have used the two detainees as bargaining chips when negotiating with the pirates, who are threatening to kill the 36 fishermen on board the Alakrana. Media reports say the pirates want a ransom of 4 million dollars.

However, Abdou Willy and his 31-year-old companion were flown for interrogation and eventual trial in Spain on board a military plane.

The two Somalis were seen disembarking in Madrid, covered head to toe with white suits, masks and gloves, which reminded many analysts of prisoners at the US detention camp in Guantanamo, Cuba.

The reason given for the suits was, that they prevented eventual infections, without clarifying who could be infected and with which disease.

It soon turned out Abdou Willy could be a minor, and he was subjected to several medical investigations. His age was first given as 19, then as 17, then 18.

As the medical reports kept changing, the suspected pirate was moved from prison to a youth centre, and then to a youth detention centre.

The National Court is now considering handing Abdou Willy over to Kenya for a trial there on the basis of a judicial agreement between Nairobi and the European Union, something that the court had initially excluded, Spanish National Radio said Tuesday.

The young Somali, who was flown from the impoverished African country to a different world, is finding it all kind of funny, press reports said.

He was happy to be eating well, to shower daily and to sleep in a comfortable bed, luxuries he had not enjoyed in Somalia, according to El Mundo.

He only complained about not being allowed to use his mobile phone, and about his shoelaces being removed under prison regulations, according to El Pais.

Such reports may ignore the more tragic side of the story.

'Since my son was detained... I can hardly eat, and I cannot sleep well,' the young man's mother, whose name was given as Asho Mohamud Kheyre, told El Mundo in front of her miserable shack at a displaced people's camp near the Somali capital Mogadishu.