Malaysia and South Korea said today they intended to prosecute a total of 12 Somali pirates captured in two separate, dramatic raids by their militaries last week.

Seven Somali pirates were detained by Malaysian forces last Thursday in an operation to free a hijacked oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden.

A day later, the South Korean navy captured five pirates during a mission to rescue another hijacked ship, in the Arabian Sea.

"As a sovereign country, our government has an undoubted right to punish those who attacked our people," South Korean foreign minister Kim Sung-Hwan told a press conference in Seoul.

Defence Minister Kim Kwan-Jin said yesterday that the captured pirates should be tried in South Korea, but also said he would consult with other ministries about the possibility of swapping them for the crew of another captured ship.

Officials said a final decision on the captured pirates would be made as early as tomorrow when the freed ship, the freighter Samho Jewelry, arrives in the Omani port of Muscat under escort by a South Korean destroyer.

In Kuala Lumpur, Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the pirates detained by Malaysian forces were being held on board the rescued tanker MT Bunga Laurel along with its crew of 23, which is now en route to Malaysia.

"Immediately upon arrival, they will be handed over to the police for further action," he was quoted as saying by Bernama .

An aide to the minister confirmed his remarks to AFP and said the vessel would arrive in Malaysia on January 31, but that it was still too early to determine how a prosecution would be carried out.

The chemical tanker was headed to Singapore with a cargo of lubricating oil worth more than 10 million dollars last Thursday when pirates armed with AK-47 assault rifles boarded and took control of the ship.

Malaysian naval commandos, who were manning a vessel protecting shipping in the area along with a navy attack helicopter, responded to the distress call and captured the pirates after a brief firefight.

Last November, Germany's first piracy trial in 400 years opened with 10 Somalis facing charges of hijacking a Hamburg-registered ship in the same area.

In June 2010, a court in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam jailed five Somali pirates over an attack on a cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, the first conviction of its kind in Europe.

Piracy has surged off lawless Somalia in recent years, and international warships patrol the area in a bid to clamp down on the problem.

Three Malaysian ships have previously been seized.

The Malaysian International Shipping Corporation, which operates the MT Bunga Laurel, and the Malaysian navy joined forces in 2009 to man a vessel used in escorting and protecting shipping in the area.

- AFP