Hamburg-based Leonhardt & Blumberg operate the ship, which was sailing between Kenya and the Seychelles. The crew includes "Two Ukrainians, three Russians, and 14 citizens of the Philippines," plus a German captain. (Kyiv Post, 04/08/09)
Wikipedia makes the date of capture 4/4/09 and says, citing Der Spiegel,
Around May 1st, 2009, the USS Boxer assisted around 200 members of the german special operations unit GSG-9 get close to the hijacked german container ship Hansa Stavanger. During the last phase of the operation the U.S. presidents' security advisor James Jones witheld final approval for the operation out of concern for the safety of the 25 sailors aboard the vessel. This led the german department of defense to abort the planned attack on the freighter...A ransom of $15 million was placed on the ship. (Wikipedia, "List of ships attacked by Somali pirates," 12/31/09)
