Munich - A former foreign minister of Somalia called in an interview published Saturday for foreign navies to crack down on piracy and lock the pirates up.

"They should set up internment camps under extra-territorial jurisdiction," said Abdullahi Sheikh Ismael in an interview with the German news magazine website Focus Online.

He said the camps could be on Somali soil, but the judges would not have to be from Somalia. Navies which caught pirates could decide themselves where to try them.

Ismael, who was speaking in Djibouti, belongs to the legislature of Somalia's interim government and previously held the foreign portfolio.

The government, which has very little power, has already consented to navies chasing the pirates in Somali waters, but some nations such as Germany insist they have no powers to arrest or punish the pirates.

NATO defence ministers agreed at the start of this month to send a flotilla commanded by an Italian vice-admiral to fight the pirates.

The International Maritime Bureau says 30 ships have been hijacked for ransom off Somalia so far this year. dpa