For a fearsome pirate, even one in self-declared retirement, there is a notable lack of what literature has led one to expect: cutlass, eye-patch, hook or even a parrot.
Instead, Mohamed Abdi Hassan, one of Somalia’s — if not the world’s — most notorious pirate chiefs, appears far more businessman than sea bandit, as he explains why he now wants to end the murderous hijacking of ships.
Hassan, better known as “Afweyne” or “Big Mouth”, whose men once terrorised vast stretches of the Indian Ocean — generating millions of dollars in ransoms from seized ships — now claims to have renounced piracy.
Afweyne, who says he earned his nickname as a child “because I would cry a lot”, claims to have persuaded almost a thousand young pirates to quit.
Last year a United Nations report described Afweyne as “one of the most notorious and influential leaders” in Somalia.
Pirate attacks have in recent years been launched as far as 3,655 kilometres (2,277 miles) from the Somali coast in the Indian Ocean.
The World Bank last month calculated between $315 million and $385 million (242-295 million euros) has been paid in ransoms since 2005, a figure dwarfed by the estimated $18 billion that piracy costs the world economy annually.
But Afweyne, a soft spoken and portly man in his fifties with an apparently kindly manner, shuns descriptions of himself as a pirate, and especially the Somali translation of “burcad badeed”, literally, the “scum of the sea”.
Afweyne, whose son is reportedly a feared pirate chief, was involved in the 2008 capture of the Saudi-owned Sirius Star oil supertanker, released for a ransom of several million dollars.
His or his son’s men were also involved in the 2008 capture of the MV Faina, a Ukrainian transport ship carrying 33 refurbished Soviet-era battle tanks, which was released after a 134-day hijack for a reported three million dollars.
Afweyne also reportedly carried out a string of attacks against ships carrying food aid to his impoverished nation.
In recent years, international naval patrols from China, the European Union, United States and Russia have protected shipping and fought off pirate vessels, with the rate of attacks tumbling by 80 percent from 2011 to 2012, according to the EU’s anti-piracy mission in Somalia, EUNAVFOR.
But Afweyne says long-term change is not just about making changes at sea.
Money for training and support to allow the pirates to turn their lives around is also key, he says.
Cynics argue that Afweyne has made his money, and now wants to invest the cash in businesses. Others suggest he is partly driven by condemnation that the pirates of his Saleban clan have tarnished the international reputation of the wider Somali people.
Last year he was reportedly given a diplomatic passport by Somalia’s then president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, as an inducement to dismantle his pirate network.
But whatever his motivation — and however hard it may be in reality to stimulate economic growth in the lawless pirate regions — Afweyne’s influence is important.
Somalia’s weak government — propped up by a 17,000-strong African Union force — does not control the key areas where pirates operate, which are largely along the northern coast in the autonomous Puntland region.
While the pirates have lost ground, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) warns that Somalia’s waters remain extremely high-risk.
Five boats and 77 hostages are still held by Somali pirates, according to the IMB, while some pirates have turned to land-based kidnapping and banditry instead.
But Somalia’s government is slowly boosting its control over its territory, helped by military advances made against Islamist forces by African Union and government troops, with the economy and trade growing as security slowly improves. Business in the country’s ports, notably, is booming.
At Mogadishu’s port, numbers of large ships offloading goods — and this year exporting livestock for the first time in over two decades — have grown by around a fifth in the past year.
Other ex-pirates seem supportive of Afweyne’s move, but warn that efforts to stop piracy must involve concrete change on the ground.
Ex-pirate captain Abdullahi Abdi said he cannot promise that those he commanded, who are now jobless onshore, have given up attacks for good.
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