As Captain Richard Phillips makes his way back to Vermont, a week after he was held hostage by four Somali pirates, the AP reports that the lone, surviving pirate will be tried in New York.
Phillips is the captain of the container ship Maersk Alabama which was carrying aid; the pirates had tried to hijack the ship while it was in the Horn of Africa last week, but the crew managed to take back control. Abduhl Wal-i-Musi, who is believed to be between 17 and 19 years old, had surrendered to the U.S. Navy before Navy Seals fatally shot his three fellow pirates and rescued Phillips. An official told the AP that Wal-i-Musi would be brought to New York, though it's not clear when.
Some Maersk Alabama crew members from New York told the Post about the drama on the seas. They said the pirates, armed with AK-47s, stormed the ship and had taken Phillips hostage, but Wal-i-Musi had followed other crew members, so the crew took Wal-i-Musi hostage. Miguel Ruiz of the Bronx said, "I pulled a knife on his face and said, 'We are going to kill you,' and my supervisor said, 'Don't do anything to this guy.' We could have killed the hostage, but we didn't have the orders to do it. We are not killers. We try to help other nations."
They ended up trying to trade the captain for the pirate, but the pirates left with Phillips. Ruiz said he also asked why Wal-i-Musi resorted to piracy, "He said, 'We do this because we have 20 million people dying in Somalia. They have no food. They have no water. They have no medicine.'"
