Hostages Held by Somali Pirates Feared for Their Lives

An engineer aboard an oil-laden Saudi supertanker hijacked by Somali pirates last fall is admitting that he feared for his life during the terrifying 57-day ordeal.

James Grady, along with his 24 fellow hostages, worried he would be shot dead by the Somali pirates who took over their ship.

Grady told the Glasgow Sunday Mail he secretly kept a computer diary and took photos while in captivity.

"I don't know what they'd have done if they had realized what I was doing," the 52-year-old Scotsman told the Sunday Mail. "It is like a film. When I was hiding things away, hoping the pirates wouldn't find them, I did think of those old war movies you see, with people hiding things from the Germans."

The MV Sirius Star, a brand new tanker with a 25-member crew and owned by the Vela International Marine, Ltd, was seized in the Indian Ocean on Nov. 15 in a dramatic escalation of the high seas piracy that has plagued the shipping lanes off Somalia. It was released after pirates received a $3 million ransom.

Click here for photos of the pirates receiving the ransom.

Pirates Could Release Ukrainian Ship Within Days

In his diary, the father of two and who was working as an engineer aboard the ship, wrote of how the pirates, among other things, panicked after mistaking a lighthouse for another ship attacking them and used computers to watch porn, the Sunday Mail reported.

"We didn't want to upset them - for obvious reasons," Grady told the Sunday Mail. "They thought they'd stolen everything there was to steal on the ship but I had a hiding place in the engine room that they never discovered."

It was in one of those places — above a loose ceiling tile in a bathroom — where Grady hid a radio he used to listen to news reports about the hijacking.

The pirates came up quickly before hijacking their boat, he said.

"When the first mate came and told me he thought we were being followed, the speedboats were just like little dots in our wake," he told the Sunday Mail. "You could barely see them. I thought, 'No, they're not following us.' But they were gaining on us as we watched. The advice on how to get away from pirates is speed up and zig-zag. It's practically impossible to do both at the same time."

Click here to read more on this story from the Glasgow Sunday Mail.