Somali piracy monitor may be freed pending trial

A court ordered the release on Tuesday of a Kenyan who monitors piracy off Somalia pending his trial on charges of giving "alarming" information about the destination of tanks seized on a Ukrainian ship. But relatives of Andrew Mwangura, of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, were unable immediately to produce a 200,000 shilling ($2,747) bond the court required to let him leave custody in Mombasa port.
Mwangura's arrest last week heightened controversy around the capture of the MV Faina, loaded with 33 T-72 tanks, in the most high-profile of this year's rash of hijackings off Somalia. He had said the tanks, grenade-launchers and ammunition on board the Ukrainian vessel were bound for South Sudan, and not Kenya as Nairobi says. That embarrassed the Kenyan government, which helped broker a 2005 north-south peace pact in Sudan. Nairobi-based diplomats back Mwangura's version.