A Yemeni court handed down jail sentences to Somalis after convicting them of forming an illegal group and carrying out piracy attacks in the Gulf of Aden, the 26 September website reported on Wednesday.
The specialized penal court in Mukallah, Hadramout, convicted Mahmoud Golid and Ahmed Dirih of kidnapping a Yemeni boat in the Yemeni territorial waters giving them a ten-year jail term each, according to the website. The second convict is still at large.
The court also sentenced two other Somali pirates, Ahmed Abdi and Abdulkadir Abdulelah, to five years in prison each, it said.
The four were convicted of forming an illegal, armed gang which carried pirate attacks off Yemen and the terms were ruled to have started since their arrest, the website added.
The convicts confessed to their crimes and possessing weapons during the investigations, but they still have a chance to appeal against the verdict.
In recent years, Yemen has arrested many Africans and Yemenis on charges of maritime piracy. Some of them went on trial and were given death and jail sentences.
Piracy has soared off Yemen and Somalia in the past few years affecting the national economy and one of the world's busiest waterways in the region.