Piraterie — USS Nicholas Captures Suspected Pirates

INDIAN OCEAN, April 1, 2010 — The crew of the USS Nicholas cap­tured sus­pect­ed pirates today after exchang­ing fire, sink­ing a skiff and con­fis­cat­ing a sus­pect­ed moth­er ship.
While oper­at­ing west of the Sey­chelles in inter­na­tion­al waters, the Nicholas crew report­ed tak­ing fire at 12:27 a.m. local time from a sus­pect­ed pirate skiff and returned fire, pur­su­ing the ves­sel until the dis­abled skiff stopped. 

At about 2 a.m., per­son­nel from Nicholas board­ed the dis­abled skiff and detained three peo­ple. The board­ing team found ammu­ni­tion and mul­ti­ple cans of fuel on board. 

After tak­ing the sus­pect­ed pirates on board, the Nicholas crew sank the dis­abled skiff at about 3 a.m.

Two more sus­pect­ed pirates were cap­tured on the con­fis­cat­ed moth­er ship. 

The sus­pects will remain in U.S. cus­tody on board Nicholas until a deter­mi­na­tion is made regard­ing their dis­po­si­tion, offi­cials said. 

The USS Nicholas, an Oliv­er Haz­ard Per­ry class frigate home-port­ed in Nor­folk, Va., is sup­port­ing U.S. Naval Forces Africa, the naval com­po­nent of U.S. Africa Command. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)