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By Root 895 0

capture, not even the type of ship they had been pursuing when they were caught. But Jamal’s next statement suggested that the gang had not been as focused on illegal fishing as he had initially indicated. “Fishing boats are hard to capture, they have more sophisticated defences,” he said. “But the cargo ships are from the same countries and they are the same people. Our enemies are the ones doing the illegal fishing, but we’ll take anything we can get. We don’t discriminate.”

Jamal’s attack group had consisted of nine men, a typical pirate hunting party. The gang had employed two skiffs: one, a transport, carried the fuel, food, and water, while the other, speedier boat carried their rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launcher. When a suitable target was sighted, the entire team would transfer to the attack shuttle for the chase.

As I began my next question, the president and his entourage emerged from the inner compound and started to make their way slowly towards the outer gate. Without a word to me, the three rose in unison and rushed to intercept him. The president’s security stood idly by as they inserted themselves in his path, performing slight bows as they lined up before him; he responded by shaking each of their hands warmly, almost as if they were prospective supporters on the campaign trail. I could understand nothing of their verbal exchange, but I knew that any hope for a pardon they may have held was dashed when the president turned and continued towards his waiting Land Cruiser.

In all likelihood, they would not have to wait too much longer for an early parole. If their relatives and friends did not manage to get them released through clan or political influence, their places in the prison would sooner or later be claimed by a future wave of offenders, part of the ongoing game of musical cells in the Puntland justice system. It was a problem that the Puntland government itself was aware of. “Every time a suspect is apprehended for a crime, there is a whole clan behind him, paying bribes, lying to officials,” President Farole announced in a November 2010 public address. “The question is: who should be arrested then if the clans keep interfering on behalf of criminal suspects. Should only the people from outside [of Puntland] be arrested?”6

Even if the government were to release all non-pirate inmates, Puntland simply lacks the capacity to handle a steady stream of detainees from the international naval forces. With no domestic victims, piracy is clearly not a matter suited to inter-clan mediation, and, short of international seafarers’ unions agreeing to abide by Somali customary law, Puntland will remain unable to carry its share of the burden without international assistance.

* * *

In the case of Boyah and company, of course, the response of the Puntland justice system had been to grant them total amnesty for their past crimes.

One afternoon, as I was chewing khat with Joaar, the director general of the Puntland Ministry of Fisheries (and Boyah’s former employer in the lobster business), the subject of Boyah and Garaad’s coast guard project came up. “Boyah and Garaad should be behind bars,” Joaar declared, around a pulpy mouthful. “The idea of them serving as our coast guard is an insult.” Boyah, said Joaar, had tried to meet with him on multiple occasions, but Joaar had refused because he feared that the two might be photographed together.

“Boyah called me just the other day to ask me why I was fighting against him,” he said. “I told him: ‘I want to eliminate you and all others like you’ … The young guys can be rehabilitated, but the big criminals—the ones we call in Italian the grande pesce [big fish]—should be locked up.”

Yet Boyah, Garaad, and other well-known pirate leaders still walked free. I once asked a Puntland government insider why Bossaso prison was overflowing with rank-and-file pirates, while the leaders remain on the outside. “The Puntland government can’t arrest people based on rumours,” he answered. “Also, because of clan loyalty, no witnesses would come forward. It’s like having