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  At the Mercy of Somali Pirates: Hansa Stavanger Crew Describe Hostage Ordeal

At the Mercy of Somali Pirates Hansa Stavanger Crew Describe Hostage Ordeal

By SPIEGEL Staff

Part 2: Bored and Dangerous

With 50 men locked in a steel box in the sweltering heat, with nothing to do, the mood on board became increasingly tense. Above deck, the pirates began shooting into the air. "They told us they were testing their weapons," Euskirchen would later report. The deck was soon littered with large numbers of bullet casings and unexploded shells.

The pirates ransacked the ship. They broke open one of the containers and found bundles of old clothing bound for Africa. Soon many of the pirates were walking around in second-hand European clothes.

According to Kotiuk and Euskirchen, the pirates apparently failed to notice that something was brewing over the horizon. The crisis team in Berlin had mobilized 200 members of the GSG-9 elite police unit, which had brought along helicopters and speedboats. The men were now on board a borrowed American helicopter carrier, the USS Boxer, waiting for orders to deploy. A state-of-the-art German submarine had also been requested.

A senior official at the German Interior Ministry, who was involved in the planning, would later say that there were two scenarios. Under Plan A, the submarine was to take the men to the container ship, where they would exit the submarine through the torpedo tubes, wearing diving gear, climb up the side of the freighter and then overpower the pirates. The tried and tested method had the advantage of causing little noise and being relatively safe for the GSG-9 men involved.

Under Plan B, however, the GSG-9 men would be brought in by helicopter and lower themselves onto the ship's deck using ropes. Helicopters are loud, and the pirates could have shot down one of the helicopters with their bazookas or killed the hostages. Plan B was clearly the riskier approach.

But Plan A failed to materialize, because the submarine was still too far away, and so it remained where it was docked, at a port on the Mediterranean island of Crete. That left Plan B. Officials at German federal police headquarters in Potsdam, outside Berlin, were opposed to the idea. So were the Americans, who were unwilling to offer up the USS Boxer for what could turn out to be a suicide mission.

Keeping a Clear Head

Meanwhile, the pirates on board the Hansa Stavanger learned of the nearby naval buildup from the BBC, which they always listened to. When they were in a good mood, they would tell the crew about what was happening in the world -- that Michael Jackson had died, for example. But by now their good moods were rare.

The pirates replaced their original negotiator with someone who spoke no English. This made their dealings with the shipping company's negotiators complicated, but at least the numbers were clear. The pirates were now demanding $3 million. Leonhardt offered $2.3 million. The pirates soon replaced their second negotiator with someone else.

The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), Germany's federal police force, began complaining about Leonhardt to members of the crisis team. They felt that he was too rigid, and that the lives of the hostages were in danger.

The pirates took four of the seamen on land for a short period of time, including Euskirchen and Christopher Schütt, a 19-year-old apprentice. Perhaps they wanted to intimidate the men, or perhaps the pirates simply wanted to prevent potential liberators from freeing all the hostages at once. "In that sort of situation, you have to make sure you keep a clear head," says Euskirchen.

He and the other crew members tried to read the pirates' facial expressions. The chief negotiator, says Euskirchen, called himself "Mr. China." According to Euskirchen, the man was "small and plump" and "became as agitated as Rumpelstiltskin when he didn't get what he wanted."

Two Sacks of Khat a Day

The pirates became more and more violent. On two occasions, says Kotiuk, they pretended that there were going to shoot him, dragging him on deck and holding a pistol to his head. The savage game lasted 20 minutes. When it ended, says Kotiuk, "I was soaking wet."

The weapons were all loaded, and the pirates chewed the leaves of the khat plant, which contains a stimulant, all day long. The motorboats brought two large sacks of khat to the ship every day.

Once, an American helicopter circled the Hansa Stavanger, says Kotiuk. The pirates herded the hostages together along the ship's side and barricaded themselves behind them. "They used us as human shields," says the captain. Once under cover, the pirates began firing at the Americans, and the helicopter left.

Food became scarce on board. The pirates brought more food from land, including live goats that were slaughtered on deck almost daily. The sailors fished to supplement their diet. Meanwhile, the vegetation and crustaceans kept on growing underneath the ship. At one point a shark became caught on one of the sailors' fishhooks.

The supply of drinking water was also running low, because the ship's desalination plant was shut down while the ship was at anchor. The ship's engineers took apart the air-conditioning system and modified the condenser so that the condensation water could be captured and used as drinking water.

Poor Quality Negotiating Partners

Meanwhile, ship owner Leonhardt had increased his offer to $2.5 million. It looked like a deal was in sight. But then, Mr. China suddenly increased his demands, arguing that the costs had gone up, now that the ordeal had already been going on for three months. "The quality of our negotiating partners left much to be desired," Leonhardt says today. "We had just reached an agreement when suddenly it was no longer worth the paper it was written on."

Leonhardt also felt it was his duty to drive a hard bargain, even if the crew was suffering and he was insured. "Piracy off the coast of Somalia is an absolute success story. Ransoms have gone up substantially within a year. Where is this going to end?"

Meanwhile, the crisis team in Berlin was making preparations for a new attack on the pirates -- to be launched immediately following delivery of the ransom money. This time elite German Navy frogmen were to carry out the mission.

More than two dozen members of the unit were waiting on board the Rheinland-Pfalz, a frigate that had long been keeping watch out of sight of the Hansa Stavanger. But the Navy men needed time to position their helicopters between the pirate boats and the mainland.

On July 27, the crisis team received the news that the pirates and the shipping company had agreed on a $2.75 million ransom. The British security firm was to take the money to Harardhere.

Free at Last

On Monday of last week, Kotiuk and Euskirchen saw a two-engine Cessna approaching the Hansa Stavanger. After circling the ship a few times, the plane descended and a plastic bag attached to a parachute floated down to the water. The Cessna returned a second time to drop a second bag.

Over the horizon, the helicopters carrying the frogmen were ready to take off.

The pirates flipped through a few of the thick green bundles of dollars, but then they simply counted the packets and divided them up. Toward evening, the pirates, traveling back and forth on two boats, began bringing men and weapons to the shore. The Navy helicopters, still out of sight, took off to begin their mission.

For Captain Kotiuk and Second Officer Euskirchen, it seemed an eternity before the last pirate climbed overboard. But for the naval officers, things were suddenly going much too fast. The Hansa Stavanger was too close to land, and the helicopters were unable to apprehend the pirates. The Germans paid, but they didn't shoot. The Rheinland-Pfalz and, later, the frigate Brandenburg, escorted the container freighter to Mombasa, traveling at a leisurely pace with sharks in its wake.

BKA specialists were waiting for the Hansa Stavanger. Their task was to secure evidence for an investigation to be conducted by the Hamburg public prosecutor's office. But how exactly does one investigate and prosecute someone like "Mr. China," whose real name and age are unknown, a man living somewhere in the chaos of Somalia's never-ending civil war?

In September, when the five-month monsoon ends along the coast, the stormy southwesterly wind will subside and the sea will be calm again. Calm conditions are good news for the pirates in their small boats, allowing the next hunting season to begin.

And a few months after that, the sharks will probably be swimming in Mombasa harbor once again.

MATTHIAS GEBAUER, CLEMENS HÖGES, GUNTHER LATSCH, MARCEL ROSENBACH, HOLGER STARK, ALEXANDER SZANDAR, ANDREAS ULRICH

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan