Puntland state television reported on Tuesday that security forces from the semi-autonomous Somali region rescued the tanker MT Honor 25, a Palau-flagged oil products tanker that was seized by pirates in April, according to Reuters.
State television said that the pirates who were holding the tanker were arrested and would be brought to trial.
Puntland officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The tanker was hijacked on April 21, about 30 nautical miles off the coast of Puntland, with 17 crew members on board, including 10 Pakistanis.
The Puntland Ministry of Information said in a statement that a rescue operation was successful in liberating the ship and arresting 16 pirates. The statement said, “Before the operation began, five crew members were killed by pirates on board the ship.” Among the dead were three Pakistanis, a person from Myanmar, and an Indian. The statement indicated that four other crew members, three Pakistanis and one Indian, were injured.
This rescue operation comes in the wake of a similar anti-piracy operation carried out by “Puntland” last week, when the region’s maritime police forces announced that they had freed the oil tanker “Cebu 1”, which is subject to US sanctions, and which was hijacked by Somali pirates last August.
Piracy has resurfaced off the coast of Somalia in the past few years, raising concerns about shipping traffic through the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean.
A previous wave of Somali piracy between 2008 and 2014 led to disruptions in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, cost the global economy billions of dollars in losses, and caused hundreds of millions of dollars to be paid in ransom for the release of ships and their crews.
The Egyptian government decided, on Tuesday, to extend the registration period in the electronic “real estate tax” system for another 3 months, after complaints of technical problems that prevented thousands from registering, in response to popular, parliamentary, and media appeals.
The Ministry of Finance announced the extension of the registration period for the real estate tax application until the end of next December, instead of the end of September, while benefiting from the previously announced incentives, which are a 25 percent discount on residential apartments, and 10 percent on non-residential units.
The “real estate tax” is imposed on residential and commercial units at certain rates in accordance with Law No. 196 of 2008, to which several amendments were made to push owners to comply with the tax, the most recent of which was last April, when the House of Representatives approved amendments expanding the rule of exemption from this tax for those whose residential property value does not exceed 8 million pounds (about 154 thousand dollars) instead of 2 million pounds, in order to take into account inflation.
The Egyptian Ministry of Finance’s statement revealed the broad response to the new electronic real estate tax system, which was launched last June, as “citizens registered more than two million real estate units on the mobile application within 100 days, 1.5 million citizens also created electronic accounts, and we received 1.2 million tax returns,” according to Finance Minister Ahmed Kajok, saying: “Thank you to everyone for the interaction and trust.”
Experts previously appreciated the government’s approach to the “real estate taxes” file, whether with regard to incentives or payment facilities, noting that the main goal of this tax is to limit real estate wealth in Egypt.
The Minister of Finance added: “We will work with all seriousness and effort to develop the mobile application, simplify and facilitate it, improve (the system) and enhance its ability to accommodate large numbers wishing to register and benefit from the facilities,” continuing: “There will be a large and effective increase in the number of technical support to help citizens and overcome any obstacles facing them.”
Asharq Al-Awsat monitored many complaints related to the registration process through the application, and one citizen described it on Facebook as “not a friend of the user.” Egyptians residing abroad also complained of their inability to use the application, which requires an Egyptian phone number.
Kajok indicated that the Ministry will work to include observations, suggestions and comments received from citizens, the media and social networking sites.
Egypt does not intend to appeal an Italian court ruling that convicted three Egyptian security officials in absentia of involvement in the kidnapping of researcher Giulio Regeni, whose body was found days after his disappearance in Cairo in 2016, bearing “traces of torture.”
An official Egyptian diplomatic source denied his country's appeal of the ruling, telling Asharq Al-Awsat that Egypt "ignored the course of the trial in this case from the beginning and will not interact with it," ruling out that relations between the two countries would be affected by the ruling.
On Monday, an Italian court ruled to imprison 3 Egyptian officers for 10 years, after convicting them of involvement in “kidnapping and detaining Regeni,” while the court acquitted Major General Tariq Saber, the former head of the National Security Service, in the case in which Egypt denies any involvement by state agencies.
The four were tried in absentia under Italian legislation that allows the prosecution of crimes committed against Italian citizens abroad. The Italian authorities said that they were unable to determine the whereabouts of the accused.
Regeni, a graduate student at the British University of Cambridge, disappeared in the Egyptian capital on January 25, 2016. His body was found about a week later. The case caused tension in relations between Cairo and Rome.
The Egyptian diplomatic source views some of the points contained in the Italian court’s decision positively, explaining without revealing his identity that “the ruling did not condemn Egyptian government institutions, but rather punished individuals for individual actions, and it also acquitted the first accused in the case, who is an official in a security apparatus.”
The source pointed out that “the ruling also dropped murder charges against the defendants, and punished them on suspicion of kidnapping and detention, which negates any charges of torture, as was rumored.”
The trial began in 2021, but was postponed due to judicial disputes over the proper notification of the defendants about the judicial procedures.
Although the ruling issued by the Italian judiciary was preliminary, the source denied his country’s intention to “appeal,” stressing that Cairo “has been ignoring the course of the case since its inception,” and that “appealing the ruling means submitting an official request to the Italian judiciary, and this is out of the question, because there has been no Egyptian interaction at the official level with the trial since its beginning.”
Relations between Italy and Egypt deteriorated severely following Regeni's killing, but they gradually recovered in the past few years despite continued demands from Regeni's family and human rights organizations to hold those responsible accountable.
The source is confident that Egyptian-Italian relations will not be affected by the recent ruling, stressing that “relations between Cairo and Rome are developing,” recalling the convening of the joint supreme committee between the two countries at the beginning of this month.
On September 3, Cairo hosted the joint supreme committee between Egypt and Italy, headed by the two foreign ministers, for the first time since 2014. A business forum was also held between the two sides to discuss enhancing economic cooperation between the two countries.
Cairo and Rome separate bilateral relations from the procedures of the Regeni case, according to a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Rakha Ahmed, who told Asharq Al-Awsat that “there is an agreement between Egypt and Italy to strengthen joint relations in various fields,” in addition to “dealing with the Italian researcher’s case file as an exceptional, individual crime, to be dealt with legally.”
Rakha pointed out that “the issue affected Egyptian-Italian relations for a period, as evidenced by the fact that some investments stopped after the incident, but this situation has changed now, after political understandings between the two countries.”
He noted that “any Egyptian interaction with the ruling means admitting to committing a crime, so Egyptian ignoring the file remains the closest option.”
The Italian court said that the three officers convicted in the case must pay compensation to Regeni's family and the Italian government.
The ruling in the Regeni case sparked mixed reactions inside Italy, as Foreign Minister Antonio Taiani indicated that “Egypt was not convicted in the case, but rather 3 people were convicted.”
