Abduhl Wal-i-Musi, the lone pirate who surrendered to the U.S. Navy after holding an American container ship captain hostage, arrived in New York last night. The Daily News reports that he "look[ed] young, gaunt and clueless about the federal charges he faces"—he will be arraigned this morning in federal court.
Wal-i-Musi was one of four pirates who tried to hijack the Maersk Alabama in the Horn of Africa. The ship's crew members were able to take back the ship, but the pirates, armed with machine guns, took Captain Richard Phillips as a hostage. Shortly Wal-i-Musi agreed to be taken to a Naval destroyer monitoring the pirates' boat, Navy Seals killed the remaining pirates and rescued Phillips. According to the Post (which calls him the "JOLLY ROGER" because he smiled at one point for photographers, sources say that the "kidnapping and other charges [he faces carry] a maximum of life in prison."
Musi's mother Adar Abdirahman Hassan, who says her son is only 16 though investigators say he is 18, told the AP that her son was drawn to piracy by "gangsters with money" and asked President Obama for help, "I appeal to President Obama to pardon my teenager; I request him to release my son or at least allow me to see him and be with him during the trial." The director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center said the pirate's family had asked for help; Omar Jamal said, "What we have is a confused teenager, overnight thrown into the highest level of the criminal justice system in the United States out of a country where there's no law at all."
A Chicago lawyer (and Brooklyn Law grad) Michael Passman told the Daily News that it's been 100 years since the last piracy trial, adding Wal-i-Musi may have difficulties finding a lawyer, "Anyone who ever defended one of these cases has been dead for 100 years."
