In order to secure its oil and resources for the West, the US has inflicted two decades of wars and invasions upon Somalia. With no effective central government, Somalia also has no diplomats or coast guard, leaving European fishing fleets and waste dumpers to deplete and poison its fisheries. When Somalis who have fished thousands of years for a living challenge foreign vessels in their territorial waters it is they, not the interlopers who are labeled “pirates.” And although Somalia's so-called pirates have never harmed or killed a single foreigner, they find themselves the target of Western military operations.
Somali Teenager Pleads “Not Guilty” to Piracy Charges
Originally published at Rebel Reports by Jeremy Scahill
His lawyers say he is a scared 15 year old kid who fished in Somalia. Prosecutors say he is the pirate ringleader who threatened to kill a US ship’s captain.
Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, the Somali teenager accused by US prosecutors of being the “ringleader” of the group of “pirates” who allegedly attempted to seize control of the Maersk Alabama last month, has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him. Muse, who is facing 10 counts including piracy, hostage-taking, and firearms charges, appeared alongside his lawyers in federal court in New York. “We plead not guilty on all counts,” said his attorney, Phil Weinstein, during the 15 minute hearing. Weinstein protested Muse’s detention conditions, saying “they are giving him medications that he doesn’t understand,” adding that Muse was “unable to communicate with anyone exept us, once or twice a week.” Muse’s father in Somalia says his son is just 15 years old, but prosecutors convinced the judge to try him as an adult.
As we have previously noted:
Omar Jamal, executive director of Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis, said his Somali immigrant organization made contact with family members of the pirates during the hostage standoff.
Muse’s family members “don’t have any money. The father has some camels and cows and goats outside the city. … The father goes outside with the livestock and comes home at night. Father said they don’t have any money, they are broke,” Jamal said.
Muse’s mother sells milk at a small market every day, saving around $6 every month for school fees for her oldest son. She pays $15 a month in rent.
According to Reuters:
[Muse’s] lawyers told the court that he needed an operation for his hand that was injured during the attack, and had been granted little contact with his mother and family in Somalia since being held in U.S. Custody.
Prosecutors and representatives for Muse disagree about his age. Outside the courthouse, lawyers said they were looking for witnesses in Somalia to prove Muse is a juvenile after a judge ruled in April he is aged 18 and would be tried as an adult.
The defense lawyers said they had difficulty communicating with Muse and he did not understand why he had been given medication. They said they could not reveal what the medication was for.
“It’s heart-wrenching. He is confused,” said one of his lawyers, Deirdre von Dornum.
She said Muse was just “a boy who fishes and now he has ended up in solitary confinement here so it is a truly terrifying situation.”
The specific charges against Muse include eight counts that each could carry a maximum sentence of life in prison: piracy, possession of a machine gun while seizing a ship by force, hostage-taking, conspiracy to commit hostage-taking, possession of a machine gun during hostage-taking, kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and possession of a machine gun during kidnapping. He also faces two charges that carry a maximum sentence of 20 years: seizing a ship by force and conspiracy to seize a ship by force.
Prosecutors allege that Muse threatened Capt. Richard Phillips with a firearm and then “threatened to kill the captain unless his demands were satisfied.”
One of Muse’s lawyers, Fiona Doherty, said her client’s defense in part will rely on the fact that Muse turned himself voluntarily over to the US Navy. “We think he will be exonerated. He was the one who requested permission to board the US ship. He was trying to negotiate for the safety of captain Phillips.”
The Maersk Alabama belongs to a major Department of Defense contractor, which provides the Pentagon with its largest fleet of US-flagged ships in the world.
Jeremy Scahill is an independent journalist and author of BlackWater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Find more of his work at http://rebelreports.com.
This week’s featured author is Nanjala Nyabola. Nyabola is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya.
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