Of course they can. This is military in international waters, you can do what you want and worry about being sued by whomever later (good luck with that). The French special forces took over an oil tanker and brought it to France no later than October [1].

Again, trying to find too many excuses why it is not possible usually indicates that in reality they don't want to for whatever reasons (alreayd mentioned my theory). Or ask the French to do it as they seem to at least have a working defense chain of command...

Generally, whatever happens, or not happens, in those situations has been decided, and we should never take any public narratives at face value.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2j1gynjddo