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China sentences 14 hijackers of India-bound ship: PTI

A Chinese court has handed down sentences ranging from death to prison terms to 14 pirates from Myanmar for hijacking a Taiwanese cargo ship carrying alkali, bound for Calcutta port, in March 1999, the state media reported in Beijing on Tuesday.

A court in south China's Guangxi region charged the pirates with raiding the cargo ship Marine Master and setting its 21 crew members adrift in the Andaman sea, a report from Nanning, the provincial capital, said.

The head of the pirates, Maung Htay Aung, was sentenced to death with a two year reprieve while Kwaw Soe and Kyaw Soe Lin were given life terms, Xinhua news agency said.

The court ordered confiscation of their personal property.

Eleven pirates were sentenced to prison terms from three to 10 years. They were also fined and deported from China, Xinhua said.

The pirates hijacked the ship on March 17, 1999 when it was sailing through the Andaman sea, south of Myanmar, heading from China's eastern port of Zhangjiagang to Calcutta. They seized the cargo as well as crew members' valuables worth more than 5.8 million yuan (over $680,000).

The crew was then forced into a lifeboat, which drifted for 10 days, before being rescued by fishermen from Thailand.

The pirates disguised the cargo ship and sailed it to the port of Shantou in south China's Guangdong province, where they sold the alkali.

When the ship docked at Fangchenggang in Guangxi for repairs on June 8, local police spotted the hijacked ship and arrested the pirates.

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