An international martime agency said Wednesday that a boat sunk by India's navy last week near Somalia was a Thai fishing trawler not a pirate «mother vessel,» but the Indian navy defended its action, saying that it fired in self-defense. Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, said one Thai crew member died when the Indian frigate INS Tabar fired on the boat in the Gulf of Aden on Nov. 18. Fourteen others are missing while a Cambodian sailor was rescued four days later by passing fishmermen, he said. The IMB received a report on the apparent mistake late Tuesday from Bangkok-based Sirichai Fisheries, which owned the Ekawat Nava5 vessel, he was quoted as saying by Associated Press. «The Indian navy assumed it was a pirate vessel because they may have seen armed pirates on board the boat which has been hijacked earlier,» Choong said. India's navy last week said the INS Tabar, which began patrolling the gulf on Nov. 2, battled a pirate «mother vessel» on Nov. 18, setting the ship ablaze. In New Delhi, Indian navy spokesman Commander Nirad Sinha said Wednesday that the ship apparently had been hijacked by pirates and that the INS Tabor was responding to the pirates' threat to attack. «In so far as we are concerned, both its description and its intent were that of a pirate ship,» he said. «Only after we were fired upon did we fire. We fired in self defense. There were gun-toting guys with RPGs on it.» «Pirates take over ships,» he said. «They've been doing that since the days of Long John Silver.» Choong said Sirichai Fisheries found out about the mishap after speaking to the Cambodian sailor, who is now recuperating in a hospital in Yemen. The trawler was headed from Oman to Yemen to deliver fishing equipment when it was hijacked, he said. «We are saddened with what has happened. It's an unfortunate tragedy. We hope that this incident won't affect the anti-piracy operation by the multi-coalition navies there,» Choong added.
