Youthful Pirate Faces Life in Federal Prison if Convicted on Piracy Charges
By: Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, the lone survivor of the four Somali pirates who attacked the United States flagged-ship Maersk Alabama on April 8, 2009, was recently indicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on five criminal counts, including piracy under Section 1651 of the Title 18 of the United States Code. The other three pirates did not fare as well. They were killed four days earlier in spectacular fashion by Navy Seals sharp shooters who also rescued the captain of the Maersk Alabama. If convicted of piracy, Muse will face a life sentence under United States Code Title 18, Section 1651.
The Maersk Alabama case, which drew around-the-clock media attention, provoked intense discussions in American households and work places about the issue of piracy and what to do about it. The only real frame of reference most Americans had of piracy before this incident was the swashbuckling kind portrayed in Disney’s Pirates of Caribbean. The Maersk Alabama made the horrible act of piracy personal because the freighter was flying an American flag and was being captained by an American citizen. In effect, the four pirates had attacked America and held the nation hostage for four days until the Navy Seals shut down the high seas drama with three simultaneous, perfectly-placed bullets that not only killed three of the Somali pirates but sent a message to other potential pirates that the American military will take no prisoners when Americans are attacked on the high seas.
One hundred and eighty-nine years ago the United States Supreme Court held that the U.S. Congress had the power “to define and punish piracy and felonies committed on high seas, and offenses against law of nations.” 1/ Forty-one years later a Massachusetts court ruled that the U.S. Constitution conferred upon Congress the power to not only punish piracy under the Law of Nations but to define piracy in its own terms even if the high seas acts committed were not considered piracy by the Law of Nations.2/ Larry Howard, a professor at the Maritime College branch of the State University of New York, and an expert on piracy, said these definitions were embraced by the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas which defined piracy as “any act of depredation, committed for private ends.”
The Supreme Court in 1893 defined “high seas” as open waters of oceans and seas 3/, and forty-two years later a California federal court held that the territorial waters of the United States are not considered “high seas.” 4/ Under the Law of Nations, any robbery committed on the high seas is piracy 5/ and Article 3 of the Law of Nations defines the term “law of nations” as “the science of the rights which exist between Nations or States, and of the obligations corresponding to these rights.” (more…)
