HAMBURG // Ten Somali men go on trial for piracy tomorrow in this maritime city, the first such case in Germany in some 400 years.
The men are charged with attempting to seize the German container ship MS Taipan in April, some 900 kilometres (560 miles) east of the Somali coast. The trial should last several months.
The pirates were captured by Dutch naval forces who boarded the ship after a brief exchange of gunfire. They were later handed over to Germany. The crew evaded capture by hiding in a so-called "panic room".
Pirates used to have their heads chopped off down by the Hamburg docks, but today's defendants face a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.
Experts suggest this will hardly deter others from rushing to join the Horn of Africa's most lucrative's business.
Dieter Berg, head of marine underwriting at Germany's Munich RE, the world's leading reinsurance company, said it was a "high-profit, low risk game" for pirates.
Mr Burg said it was "important pirates should face trial", but too few countries are prepared to deal with such difficult cases.
"There's little risk involved for would-be pirates" as most of those captured are simply let go, Berg said.
Anja Shortland, who studies the issue at the German Institute for Economic Research, said that for a Somali pirate to be tried in the West "might be the ultimate prize rather than a deterrent.
"Spending three, five, even seven years in a European or American jail followed by political asylum - you can't do much better as a Somali man," she said.
Niels Stolberg, president of the Beluga Shipping Company, which has seen several of its ships attacked, agreed: "It is rather unlikely that the trial in Hamburg will have any major effect on the general problem."
Both the number of attacks and the amounts demanded for ransom have spiked over the past two years, despite deployment of naval forces in the region, according to the London-based International Maritime Bureau.
Some 23 vessels and 500 crew are currently held by Somali pirates, according to the Bureau.
The average length of captivity was 45 days in 2008, 90 days in 2009, and 120 days so far this year because "negotiations over ransoms are getting both longer and more complicated," Mr Berg said. "Most ransoms average $4 million to $5 million," he said.
Pirates say they received a record US$9 million for the release of a South Korean supertanker in November.
Many shipping companies now take out special "kidnap and ransom" insurance.
At least one London company now advertises $5m coverage for a premium of 15,000 dollars per voyage, according to Mr Berg.
However, Mr Berg said, "it's not just the payment of ransom that is expensive. You have to add two to three million dollars for brokering a deal" with insurance companies employing professional negotiators and helicopters to drop off ransoms to pirates.
According to Mr Berg, pirates manage their money well, investing it abroad and buying better weapons and faster speed boats for their attacks.
Many ships are captured because they gamble with security measures, according to Ms Shortland.
"If you look at the pattern of what is being hijacked, it's the idle, the unprepared," she said. "If you make a good show of being prepared then the pirates go elsewhere."
Mr Stolberg, whose shipping company operates nearly 70 heavy lift ships, said his company resorts to passive defence measures to ward off attacks.
"A few hundred metres of razor sharp wire are installed along the railing of each Beluga vessel entering risk areas," he said.
Decks are sprayed with a slippery water-chemical solution to slow down any pirate who makes it onto a ship.
