British and Irish anti-piracy experts rescued - after pirates attack

Two British and one Irish security guard were plucked from the sea by a military helicopter yesterday after they jumped from a tanker seized by pirates off Somalia, leaving behind more than two dozen crew members.

Their decision to abandon the vessel that their company was paid handsomely to protect attracted some criticism. One Western aid official in the region said that after calls for commercial vessels to hire security guards, it was “somewhat ironic that they jump overboard to save themselves”.



Their British employer, however, insisted that the three former soldiers were heroes who had resisted a sustained attack by heavily armed pirates with great courage and would have been killed if they had stayed any longer. “They were unarmed. They had no other option. As far as I’m concerned they deserve a medal,” said Nick Davis, a former British Army pilot who runs AntiPiracy Maritime Security Solutions (APMSS) out of Poole, Dorset.

Mr Davis said his guards were unarmed because it was almost impossible to carry firearms through Customs and on to vessels in most countries, and because ships with cargoes of chemicals or gas seldom allowed weapons on board. The ship concerned, the Liberian-flagged tanker the Biscaglia, was carrying a cargo of palm oil.