MOSCOW, May 7 – The Russian defence ministry on Friday said it had released a group of Somali pirates who were captured in the Gulf of Aden by its naval forces after seizing a Russian oil tanker.
"This is connected with there being an incomplete international legal basis" to keep them detained, the defence ministry\’s chief spokesman Colonel Alexei Kuznetsov told the Interfax news agency.
A Russian defence ministry spokeswoman contacted by AFP confirmed the report but declined to give further information on the current location of the pirates.
Russian investigators had said Thursday that the 10 captured pirates would be brought to Moscow to face charges.
The pirates were captured when marines from the Marshal Shaposhnikov, a Russian warship, stormed the oil tanker, called the Moscow University.