Somali Pirate Sentenced to 34 Years in U.S. Prison

In an update to earlier posts, a U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York sentenced the Somali pirate, Abduwali Muse, to 34 years in prison for his involvement in the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, as well as two other attacks on ships in the Indian Ocean in March and April 2009.  Muse had pled guilty in May 2010 and had requested lenience from the court in sentencing due to his youth.  The judge, however, agreed with the U.S. government that a longer sentence was necessary to deter piracy.  In November, in the first piracy trial in the U.S. in over a hundred years, a federal district court in Virginia sentenced another Somali pirate, Jama Idle Ibrahim, to 30 years in jail for an attack on a U.S. Navy vessel, the USS Ashland.

(cgb)