Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) — Somali pirates are demanding $4 million in ransom and the release of two of their colleagues to free a Spanish trawler, one of the pirates said.

“We need the owners of the ship to put pressure on the Spanish authorities to get our people out safely,” Hassan Gadaf Goomey, a spokesman for the pirates holding the ship, said today in a telephone interview from the coastal village of Harardhere.

The group decided on the $4 million ransom because “we seized this fishing ship exploiting our marine resources,” he said. Two members of the group were detained after they left the hijacked trawler in a skiff.

The Alakrana trawler was captured on Oct. 2. Pirates have attacked vessels off Somalia about 150 times so far this year, according to the U.S. Navy. A total of 29 ships have been seized, and pirates are holding four vessels for ransom.

Source: Bloomberg

By Hamsa Omar

—Editors: Karl Maier, Phil Sanders

To contact the reporter on this story: Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu via Johannesburg at .

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