"There were fellow crew members who just couldn't stop crying"

Forty-seven days of agonizing waiting. That's how one crewmember aboard the fishing vessel Alakrana described the 2009 kidnapping ordeal in the Indian Ocean before the High Court.

Gaiza Iturbe, who at times wept, testified on Friday at the trial of two Somali pirates who are charged with kidnapping the 36-member crew. Prosecutors are demanding 22 years for each defendant.

"There were fellow crew members who just couldn't stop crying and we were all as white as sheets, filled with terror," Iturbe said, adding that for the first time in his life he felt he was close to death.

"When we stopped, they started laughing at us and one of the leaders pointed to three men and they took them out. He later said that we were going to call our families to say goodbye because if the government didn't comply with their wishes, they were going to start killing us in threes."

Iturbe said that the Somalis pushed them around constantly and insulted them. At times they would shoot a bazooka and fire machine guns to scare the hostages.

Iturbe is the first of 16 crew members called to testify in the trial of Abdu Willy and Raageggesey Adji Haman. The crewman recognized both defendants as part of the group of pirates who were on board the Alakrana.

The defendants are expected to testify by the end of next week.

The Alakrana tuna vessel was hijacked by pirates on September 3, 2009 about 500 miles off the coast of Somalia.

Willy and Haman were caught as they tried to flee the boat, and brought to Spain to face charges.