Somali pirate captive asks about NUFC score

Nov 26 2008 By Graeme Whitfield

A North East man being held captive by Somali pirates on a hijacked oil tanker last night made light of his ordeal, and said the hostages families dont have too much to worry about.

Chief engineer Peter French, from County Durham, is among 25 people being held on the Saudi-owned Sirius Star.

He told ITV News the pirates had not mistreated the captives, and said he hoped to speak to his family again soon.

Mr French, the ships chief engineer, was seized along with James Grady, the ships second officer, from Renfrewshire, when pirates attacked the Sirius Star on November 15, 420 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia.

It was not clear whether Mr French was being supervised by his captors during the phone call to ITV News.

He said: The pirates (are) no problem whatsoever. We have had no mistreatment or anything.

Hopefully we are going to get some more phone calls to our families soon. Our families dont have too much to worry about at the moment. All in all, we are not too badly off. The boys (the crew) are quite happy. We are talking to them all the time, reassuring them.

Apart from the inconvenience of being locked up, our life is not too bad.

Mr French said the crew were allowed a measure of freedom by the pirates.

Were not locked up in cabins or anything, we go about our normal daily work, he said.

The 1,080ft long ship was fully laden with two million barrels of oil when pirates boarded it and is the largest vessel ever to be hijacked in a region which has become notorious for piracy.

Yesterday one of the pirates, who called himself Daybad, told the BBC the hostages were being treated like prisoners of war.

Mr French was in good enough spirits to ask about the Newcastle United result from the weekend.

Excellent, thats a good score for us, he said when told the team drew 0-0 with Chelsea.

Mr Grady told of the lightning speed of the hijacking.

It was early on the 15th. Ships time 0855 and by two minutes past nine they had control of the bridge by then, he said.

Mr Grady said he had no idea how long it would take to resolve the situation.

On Sunday the pirates moved the supertanker further away from the Somali coast after an extremist Islamic group threatened to attack them for taking a Muslim-owned vessel.