The eight Indonesian pirates who hijacked an oil tanker over a year ago have been sentenced after pleading guilty.
Sentences were handed down after 18 months of being held by the authorities. Six of the pirates were given 15 years in prison and five lashes of a cane, the other two were given 18 years behind bars.
The MT Orkim Harmony, a fuel tanker holding approximately 6,000 tonnes of petrol, was traveling to the Port of Kuantan from Malaysia when the men boarded the vessel in June 2016.
Hijacking the ship, the men took all 22 crew members hostage, there were no injuries reported except for one man who was shot but survived.
Technical Paper: Port security and the effect of piracy
The men escaped and pretended to be washed up in a lifeboat around a week later to evade capture, but were discovered to have a large amount of cash which tipped off authorities.
PTI reported on November 24, 2016, that two vessels operating in the Gulf of Guinea had been attacked by the same group of pirates on the morning of November 23.
The Panamanian-flagged Product Tanker Eliana and Nigerian-flagged PSV Kendrick were both attacked off the Bayelsa coast off Nigeria, believed to be by the same group, some 60-70 nautical miles from shore.
