SIXTY-TWO Somali pirates have been repatriated from Shimo la Tewa Maximum Security Prison in Mombasa as part of the Piracy Prisoner Transfer Programme.
According prison authorities, 164 pirates are still held at Shimo la Tewa and Kamiti prisons after they were captured at sea over alleged hijacking of vessels in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden since 2008.
Eighty-three were convicted, while four are remandees who have appealed their cases at the High Court in Mombasa.
Meshack Okiya, the deputy officer in charge of Shimo la Tewa Prison, said 14 pirates will be handed over to Somalia’s embassy in Nairobi next week for repatriation after they completed their jail terms.
They are at the Kamiti Prison.
Okiya said the government is working with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to facilitate the transfer of pirates who have completed their jail terms.
He spoke on Tuesday after receiving a Ramadhan donation from the Somali community in Mombasa.
UNODC has set up the Garowe and Hargeisa detention facilities in Puntland and Somaliland respectively as part of the Piracy Prisoner Transfer Programme.
“The pirates are handed over to Somalia embassy to transfer them to Puntland, where they can integrate with their relatives,” Okiya said.
He said the Kamiti Prison has been mandated to prepare repatriation orders to ease their transfer once they are about to complete the jail terms.
Okiya said most prisoners are serving jail terms of between five and 20 years.
Somalia has been pushing for the signing of an MoU to enable convicted Somalis to be repatriated.
Former Somalia ambassador Mohamed Ali Nur said the agreement will see pirates repatriated to Somalia to serve out the remainder of their sentences in their country’s prisons.
