Chirag v. MT Marida Marguerite Schiffahrts

RULING ON MOTION TO DISMISS

STEFAN R. UNDERHILL, District Judge.

This case arises out of Somali pirates’ seizure of a Marshall Island ship — which was managed by a British company and staffed by Indian sailors — in the Gulf of Aden. In the fall of 2010, pirates boarded a tanker named the MT Marida Marguerite Schiffarhrts (“Marida Marguerite”) somewhere off the coast of Yemen. The ship had set out from India for Belgium, but remained captured at sea for eight months while the pirates sought ransom and tortured the sailors. Two of the kidnapped sailors, both of whom are from India, are the…