The 13 Somalian pirates arrested after the killing of four American sailors could stand trial in the USA.

Scott and Jean Adam, Phyllis Mackay and Bob Riggle were killed yesterday when a gun battle erupted on their Davidson 58 pilot house cutter, Quest, as the pirates were escorting them to a safe haven in their homeland.

After hearing gunfire US forces, which had been tailing the yacht, boarded it to discover the four had been shot, but they arrested the remaining pirates.

The pirates are being held on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise off East Africa.

Today Bob Prucha, a spokesman for US Central Command in Florida, confirmed that the US military, the FBI and the Justice Department are still deciding what to do next with the suspects, but he refused to say if the FBI had interviewed them yet.

The military also revealed that one pirate fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a Navy warship and that gunfire was heard from on board Quest, but that it is not known yet why that violence started.

Wing Commander Paddy O’Kennedy, spokesman for the European Union’s anti-piracy force, said: ‘For us it’s too soon. We don’t know what happened yesterday so we’re not going to make any knee-jerk decisions.’

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