Two British and one Irish security guard were plucked from the sea by a military helicopter yesterday after they jumped from a tanker seized by pirates off Somalia, leaving behind more than two dozen crew members.

Their decision to abandon the vessel that their company was paid handsomely to protect attracted some criticism. One Western aid official in the region told The Times that after calls for commercial vessels to hire security guards, it was “somewhat ironic that they jump overboard to save themselves”.

Their British employer, however, insisted that the three former soldiers were heroes who had resisted a sustained attack by heavily armed pirates with great courage and would have been killed if they had stayed any longer. “They were unarmed. They had no other option. As far as I’m concerned they deserve a medal,” said Nick Davis, a former British Army pilot who runs AntiPiracy Maritime Security Solutions (APMSS) out of Poole, Dorset. Mr Davis said his guards were unarmed because it was almost impossible to carry firearms through Customs and on to vessels in most countries, and because ships with cargoes of chemicals or gas seldom allowed weapons on board. The ship concerned, the Liberian-flagged tanker the Biscaglia, was carrying a cargo of palm oil.

The attack happened early yesterday as the tanker was sailing through the Gulf of Aden from India to Rotterdam. At 7.48am the captain sent out a distress call, which was relayed to the Nivose, a French frigate that is part of the Western naval task force protecting commercial shipping from Somalia’s ever-bolder pirates.

The Nivose dispatched a helicopter but by the time it arrived six pirates had already seized the Biscaglia.

“There were three members of the crew on the roof [of the ship],” said Fre-deric Karakaya, the helicopter pilot. “They were hiding and signalled to us. They were spotted, and jumped into the water. We dropped a coloured marker, then gave their position to a Lynx [helicopter] which winched them aboard.”

The three unnamed guards, wearing baseball caps and lifejackets, were deposited on the Nivose and later transferred to another French naval vessel, the Jean de Vienne. They were uninjured. At least 27 crew members – 25 Indians and two Bangladeshis – were being held hostage on board the Biscaglia.

APMSS provides three-man teams of former soldiers to protect commercial vessels and in recent weeks demand for its services has soared. It has teams on ten ships off Somalia – each costing £14,000 for three days.

Mr Davis defended the actions of his team. He said they had been attacked by six pirates in a high-speed skiff armed with AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades.

He said the two former marines and a former paratroop held them off for about 40 minutes – long enough for the crew to send out a distress call and seek safety below deck.

They fired water cannon at the pirates and zigzagged the vessel. They also used a long-range accoustic device that fires laser-like beams of excruciatingly painful sound at attackers. They beat off three or four attacks but the pirates then began firing RPGs at the laser operator. Mr Davis said the pirates continued to shoot at the security guards after boarding the ship and that the three had no choice but to abandon the vessel.

The pirates then fired on them while they were in the water, and tried to run them down in the hijacked vessel. “They did what they felt they had to do to save their lives and the lives of the crew,” said Mr Davis, 37.

TheBiscaglia is the 97th vessel to be attacked this year in the waters off Somalia, where Islamist insurgents are fighting a weak, Western-backed Government. At least 15 ships, and more than 300 crew members, are being held for ransom.

Yesterday pirates released a Greek-owned cargo ship, the Centauri, which they captured on September 18. The crew of 25 Filipinos was unharmed. It was unclear whether the owners paid a ransom. The ships still being held include the Sirius Star, a giant tanker carrying two million barrels of oil that was seized on November 15. Its captors have warned of “disastrous consequences” if its Saudi owners do not pay a $25 million (£16 million) ransom by tomorrow.

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