Aahana Swrup
In 2009, an American-flagged ship, MV Maersk Alabama, became the first vessel in hundreds of years to be hijacked by pirates. During this incident, four Somali pirates abducted the ship’s Captain, Richard Phillips, holding him hostage aboard a lifeboat for five days. As per the survivor’s account, one young man named Abduwali Muse identified himself as the leader of the terrorizing group. In the end, thanks to the intervention of the US Navy, particularly the destroyer USS Bainbridge, Phillips was rescued and returned to safety. Meanwhile, three of the four pirates died in a sniper shootout. The authorities took Muse, the only surviving member of his gang, into custody shortly after. The 2013 Paul Greengrass directorial film, ‘Captain Phillips,’ charts the tale of this shockingly real-life story and sheds light on the exploits of the Somali pirate.
Abduwali Muse Was Arrested For Piracy and More
On April 8, 2009, Abduwali Abdulkadir Muse and his crew of other Somali pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama container ship. The vessel was carrying a 20-person crew, cargo, and UN food aid supplies for Somalia, Kenya, and Uganda. After the pirates boarded the vessel, they took Captain Richard Phillips as a hostage with the intention of exchanging him for a lucrative ransom. The hostage situation lasted for five gruelling days. The US Navy quickly intervened, and USS Bainbridge arrived to negotiate for Phillips’ safe return. As per reports, Muse and his fellow pirates demanded $2 million for his return.
Additionally, Phillips has claimed that over the course of his kidnapping, he was psychologically tortured by his assailants, who threatened him and even conducted mock killings. Eventually, the US Navy was able to rescue the Captain successfully. Muse, who had left the lifeboat and boarded the Navy ship for ransom negotiations, escaped the same fate as his partners in crime, who died in a sniper shootout. As such, Muse, the incident’s sole surviving pirate, was arrested and faced multiple criminal charges, including the crime of piracy, ship-siezing, kidnapping, and hostage-taking.
Abduwali Muse Underwent a Complicated Federal Court Trial in 2009
The court trial that followed in the aftermath of Abduwali Muse’s arrest presented a number of unique complications. One of the multiple counts that Muse was charged with was the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations. Notably, the last instances of such a crime had taken place in the 1800s, leaving no recent precedent in legal terms. Furthermore, some confusion about Muse’s age contributed to uncertainty about whether or not the pirate could be tried as an adult. Reportedly, accounts from his mother painted him as a 16-year-old while his father asserted that his son was only 15. Nonetheless, ultimately, New York police detective Frederick Galloway discovered that the defendant was between 18 and 19 years old.
As such, the court tried Muse as an adult. During the trial, he was given an interpreter and a free court-appointed lawyer. Prior to the hearing, his father, Abdukadir Muse Ghedi, spoke to the court via telephone from Gaalkacyo. He said, “I want everyone to understand that my boy was tricked by these bandits. If they (the authorities) do an investigation, they will see he was tricked into making this decision by someone who was older than him.” He further added, “We don’t have a government, and somebody who is stronger than us took my boy. He (Muse) was not in his right mind. Somebody tricked him.”
Abduwali Muse is Currently Serving A Prison Sentence in Indiana
Abduwali Muse pleaded guilty to two counts each of hijacking maritime vessels, kidnapping, and hostage taking on May 18, 2010. Alongside the Maersk Alabama, these charges were also connected to his involvement in previous hijacking attacks that were not named. Still, records state that these two attacks took place in March and April 2009. Ultimately, the court sentenced Muse to 405 months, or three years and nine months, in prison. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $550,000. Furthermore, this sentence is to be followed by five years of supervised release.
The crime of piracy, as defined by the law of nations, is a federal law that has a mandatory punishment of a lifetime prison sentence. Nonetheless, the court eventually dropped the charges of piracy, lifting the possibility of a life sentence for Muse. As of today, the convict continues to serve his prison sentence at a Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana. In 2018, he filed a lawsuit against a prison dentist and two other medical personnel for $1.15 million. In it, the Somali pirate accused them of deliberate dental indifference, which resulted in the loss of 15 to 32 of his teeth. There’s no update to the lawsuit at the time of writing. As of now, Muse is expected to remain imprisoned until his release in 2042.
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