Kenya is considering setting up a tribunal dedicated to prosecuting pirates to cope with the influx of Somalis detained at sea.

Officials said that it would improve efficiency and transparency as well as easing the burden on an already creaking legal system.

Prosecutors around the world are studying 17th-century piracy laws as navies wonder what to do with suspected pirates caught at sea.

Five Somalis are due to go on trial in the Netherlands next month and several more are being held in France.

Abduhl Wal-i-Musi, one of four pirates who held the captain of an American container ship hostage in a lifeboat, is expected to stand trial in New York. His comrades were shot dead during the rescue of Richard Phillips.The favoured option for most countries is to take suspects to Kenya.

Its Foreign Ministry confirmed that it was studying a proposal to set up a dedicated piracy tribunal.

“You can’t follow normal court procedure to try pirates,” Mwangi Thuita, the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, said. “Some witnesses may come from outside the country. So we need to set up some kind of special court to try them.”

The tribunal would allow Kenya to ask the international community for contributions and ease the domestic judicial system. The US, Britain and the European Union have signed agreements allowing suspects to be brought to Mombasa and tried in Kenya.

David Crane, a law professor at Syracuse University, said: “Kenya has had a strong tradition of a solid Commonwealth legal system. There is a capacity and certainly they do have an ability to try piracy cases.”

The Kenyan legal system has a reputation for corruption, however. Several high-profile cases have collapsed in recent years as police and prosecutors struggled to put cases together.

Rashid Abdi Sheikh, a Somalia analyst with the International Crisis Group, said that Kenyan courts were considered to be an interim solution because of their poor reputation. “There has been disquiet among human rights groups about corruption, delays and investigations not done properly,” he said. “Then there are also concerns in Kenya that these trials might bring retaliation.”

Defendants can wait several years before coming to court in a system that everyone agrees is overstretched.

Ten pirates are serving seven-year sentences in Kenya after being picked up by an American warship in 2006. At least 28 are on remand awaiting trial and 11 more are on their way to Kenya after being captured by a French warship on Wednesday.

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