<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>French navy storms yacht held by pirates
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>One hostage killed in crossfire with Somalis; four others rescued </TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
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Yacht owner Florent Lemacon was killed in an exchange of gunfire between Somali pirates and the French commandos who stormed the sailboat. A picture released by the French military on Friday shows pirates and hostages on the sailboat, the Tanit. -- PHOTO: WWW.GUARDIAN.CO.UK PHOTO: AFP
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Paris - Navy commandos stormed a French sailboat held by pirates off the Somali coast in an assault that left the yacht owner dead.
Four hostages, including a three-year-old child, were freed on Friday, French Defence Minister Herve Morin said on the same day.
Two pirates were killed and three others were taken prisoner. They are to be brought to France for criminal proceedings, joining 12 pirates already jailed and awaiting trial here.
It was the third time the French government has freed hostages from the hands of pirates but the first time a hostage has been killed.
In a break with French government policy, the authorities proposed paying a ransom during 48 hours of fruitless talks, but the pirates, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, rejected the offer, Mr Morin said, without divulging a sum.
The French also offered the pirates a French naval officer to hold in exchange for a mother and child but that too was rejected.
A grim-faced Mr Morin said at a news conference: 'Negotiations were leading nowhere, and the boat was approaching the coast.'
He said French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave the order to attack. It came at 3.30pm Paris time (9.30pm Singapore time), 20 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia.
The four remaining hostages, including the child, were being taken by the French authorities to Djibouti. The dead hostage was identified as Mr Florent Lemacon, the owner of the boat, the Tanit, and father of the family, Mr Morin said.
Mr Lemacon gave up his job as an engineer, and his wife Chloe, hers as a sales representative, to restore the 33-year-old Tanit before setting sail last year. 'We want to flee the consumer society and its routine,' Mr Lemacon told the newspaper Ouest France. The couple were in their late 20s.
Pirates in the Gulf of Aden had seized the Tanit two Saturdays ago.
French officials had been in contact with the pirates since Wednesday. When negotiations stalled on Thursday, the French 'immobilised' the Tanit by shooting down its sails - thus opening a new phase of talks, Mr Morin said.
By Friday, 'threats were more precise, with the pirates refusing proposals and the Tanit moving towards the coast. An operation to free the hostages was decided', the president's office said. Mr Lemacon was killed in an exchange of gunfire as he tried to duck down the hatch, Mr Morin said.
The boat, a 14.5m sailboat with a single mast, was heading for the coast of Kenya when it was attacked. The Lemacons had left France in July last year with their son Colin, then two years old, on board the boat and picked up another couple along the way.
Mr Morin yesterday promised an investigation into the death of the hostage, acknowledging that it could have been a French bullet that killed him during the rescue.
'There will be a judicial inquiry, therefore there will be an autopsy. We cannot exclude that during the exchange of fire between the pirates and our commandos, the shot (that killed Lemacon) was French,' Mr Morin said on Europe-1 Radio.
The French rescue operation did not appear to be in any proximity to another stand-off involving an American cargo ship captain held hostage by four Somali pirates.
Yesterday, another US-owned, Italian-flagged tugboat was reported hijacked in the Gulf of Aden by another gang of pirates.
According to Nato alliance officials on board a warship in the region, there are 10 Italian citizens among the boat's 16-member crew. AP, Reuters
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>One hostage killed in crossfire with Somalis; four others rescued </TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
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Yacht owner Florent Lemacon was killed in an exchange of gunfire between Somali pirates and the French commandos who stormed the sailboat. A picture released by the French military on Friday shows pirates and hostages on the sailboat, the Tanit. -- PHOTO: WWW.GUARDIAN.CO.UK PHOTO: AFP
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Paris - Navy commandos stormed a French sailboat held by pirates off the Somali coast in an assault that left the yacht owner dead.
Four hostages, including a three-year-old child, were freed on Friday, French Defence Minister Herve Morin said on the same day.
Two pirates were killed and three others were taken prisoner. They are to be brought to France for criminal proceedings, joining 12 pirates already jailed and awaiting trial here.
It was the third time the French government has freed hostages from the hands of pirates but the first time a hostage has been killed.
In a break with French government policy, the authorities proposed paying a ransom during 48 hours of fruitless talks, but the pirates, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, rejected the offer, Mr Morin said, without divulging a sum.
The French also offered the pirates a French naval officer to hold in exchange for a mother and child but that too was rejected.
A grim-faced Mr Morin said at a news conference: 'Negotiations were leading nowhere, and the boat was approaching the coast.'
He said French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave the order to attack. It came at 3.30pm Paris time (9.30pm Singapore time), 20 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia.
The four remaining hostages, including the child, were being taken by the French authorities to Djibouti. The dead hostage was identified as Mr Florent Lemacon, the owner of the boat, the Tanit, and father of the family, Mr Morin said.
Mr Lemacon gave up his job as an engineer, and his wife Chloe, hers as a sales representative, to restore the 33-year-old Tanit before setting sail last year. 'We want to flee the consumer society and its routine,' Mr Lemacon told the newspaper Ouest France. The couple were in their late 20s.
Pirates in the Gulf of Aden had seized the Tanit two Saturdays ago.
French officials had been in contact with the pirates since Wednesday. When negotiations stalled on Thursday, the French 'immobilised' the Tanit by shooting down its sails - thus opening a new phase of talks, Mr Morin said.
By Friday, 'threats were more precise, with the pirates refusing proposals and the Tanit moving towards the coast. An operation to free the hostages was decided', the president's office said. Mr Lemacon was killed in an exchange of gunfire as he tried to duck down the hatch, Mr Morin said.
The boat, a 14.5m sailboat with a single mast, was heading for the coast of Kenya when it was attacked. The Lemacons had left France in July last year with their son Colin, then two years old, on board the boat and picked up another couple along the way.
Mr Morin yesterday promised an investigation into the death of the hostage, acknowledging that it could have been a French bullet that killed him during the rescue.
'There will be a judicial inquiry, therefore there will be an autopsy. We cannot exclude that during the exchange of fire between the pirates and our commandos, the shot (that killed Lemacon) was French,' Mr Morin said on Europe-1 Radio.
The French rescue operation did not appear to be in any proximity to another stand-off involving an American cargo ship captain held hostage by four Somali pirates.
Yesterday, another US-owned, Italian-flagged tugboat was reported hijacked in the Gulf of Aden by another gang of pirates.
According to Nato alliance officials on board a warship in the region, there are 10 Italian citizens among the boat's 16-member crew. AP, Reuters
