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Somali pirates who have been holding the Basque tuna-fishing boat Alakrana hostage for the past 42 days have allowed a doctor on board the ship to attend to the captured crew, the Secretary of State for Defence informed on Wednesday.

In a statement to Radio Galega, Méndez went on to explain that the fishermen were under "enormous physical and emotional tension" for which they needed to receive medical attention.

A team from the Navy''s Social Institute sent out to where the ship is located on the high seas will cooperate in providing medical and psychological assistance to the crew.

On Wednesday, the Defence Minister, Carme Chacon, indicated that the crew were "well and have water and provisions".

The legal option

Chacon herself also signalled on Wednesday that among the "array of options" open to the Government for finding a solution to the current hijack situation was the possibility that the two Somali pirates currently being held in Spanish prisons be tried by the National High Court to see out their sentence at home in Somalia.

About this, she went on to say that "the international cannot look the other way" given that the two pirates have strong legal representation within European law and instead decided to "trace (any) ransom money".

In this regard, Chacon stressed that the hijackers "aren''t the romantic pirates that one imagines," emphasizing that they had "connections and firms of lawyers at the highest level in London".