With Somali pirate Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse set to stand trial as an adult for the hijacking a U.S. container ship and holding its captain hostage for days, his mother is again begging for some sympathy for her son. Adar Abdirahman Hassan, who previously asked President Obama to pardon Muse—or at least that she be allowed to be with him during the trial—now says, "I plead with American judges not to commit an injustice against [Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse] and hand down an unfair verdict on my son."
A defense lawyer not working on the case told the Daily News about a possible strategy: Playing up Muse's background. Martin Geduldig said, "You've got an 18-year-old kid who has no education. He's as poor as they come, and he got caught up with these pirates. In a sense, he's as much a victim as anybody else."
As for the prosecution strategy, the AP points out that one of the charges, "piracy under the law of nations," could be problematic because the law is obscure (it hasn't been used regularly since the 19th century) and defining piracy is "murky," especially when compared to the other charges like discharging a firearm. Therefore, prosecutors have "set up a scenario in which they could eventually drop the piracy count in a plea bargain if legal questions are raised about it."
