Independent Online
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
South African couple Bruno Pelizzari and Debbie Calitz will face some of the Somali pirates who took them hostage, East Coast Radio Newswatch (ECRN) reported on Monday.
The two would travel to the Netherlands in October to testify in the trial of five suspected pirates. They were part of group of 20
men arrested by the Dutch navy at the end of 2010.
Pelizzari and Calitz were held hostage for 20 months in Somalia. They were released and returned to South Africa two months ago.
“It's fine with me. I really don't mind. I am a very strong person so I can handle it. I can stand objectively, out of it, and see it from another point of view,” Calitz told ECRN about the prospect of seeing her captors.
The couple was still catching up with friends and family after almost two years apart.
Calitz was reportedly with her family in Pretoria, and Pelizzari with his family in Durban.
Calitz said they were slowly recovering.
“I am physically much better than what I was. I am okay now, even mentally,” she said.
“I know they think I need (to see) a psychiatrist and all that, or a psychologist, but I don't. It's psychology enough to be free of that place and to be out and with my family, with my friends, with the people that care about us.”