Somali pirate suspects indicted in Spain

A Spanish judge indicted two Somali pirate suspects in Madrid, while pirates held a Spanish fishing boat and its crew off the Somali coast for the 46th day. The judge indicted the two on 36 counts of kidnapping -- one for each of the 36 crew members being held, and armed robbery. He ordered the two to appear at a hearing Tuesday, according to a court order.

Pirates seized the Spanish fishing boat, the Alakrana, last month. A day later, Spanish military monitoring the situation captured two pirate suspects as they left the fishing boat, and later brought them to Madrid. The ship's owner, Echebastar Fleet, and relatives of the crew members have pleaded with the court and the Spanish government to return the two suspects to Somalia, as pirate representatives have demanded in conversations with Spanish media.

In a document Saturday, the state prosecutor asked Judge Santiago Pedraz to quickly issue the indictment and conclude the judicial investigation to move the case toward a possible trial. The trial could be held within a few weeks, a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office told CNN. The two suspects, identified as Cabdullahi Cabduwily and Rageggesey Hassan Aji, could face sentences of more than 200 years in prison each.