

"If the United States of America is putting my son on trial, I would like to be taken there. He has nothing to do with that crime, he is only a child, and he has been used for that crime by the other men," she said, pleading. government and President Obama to release my son. When I could not find him, students said to me they thought he had gone with pirates," the pirate's mother, identified as Hassan, said from her home in Galka'yo town, 465 miles north of Somalia's capital. "Students told me that my son was seen to be talking with pirates. He'd gone missing, and I had been looking for him for 15 days," she told the BBC. The alleged pirate's mother insists her son is only 16 and offered a different version of his name - Abdi Wali Abdulqadir Muse. The government gives his age at this point as "over 18".Īccording to The Associated Press, investigators have determined that from the attack on the Alabama and the hostage-taking of freighter captain Richard Phillips, the suspect is at least 18 years old, one official told the press agency. Muse was flown to New York hours after his mother appealed to President Obama for his release saying her son is just 16 years old. His hands chained at his waist, he smiled broadly as lights from a battery of media cameras put him in a spotlight while FBI agents assigned to his case brought him into their headquarters in lower Manhattan. A federal judge sentenced Somali pirate Abduwali Muse on Wednesday to 33 years and nine months in prison for hijacking the container ship Maersk Alabama in the Indian Ocean in 2009. Muse arrived in New York Monday night, landing in a driving rain storm at a nearby airbase and driven from there to the FBI's New York headquarters. The courtroom was filled with reporters, federal officials and others at the time. Muse held his face and appeared to start crying before witnesses to required to leave. The attorneys are hoping to get the suspect's father, who reportedly lives in Philadelphia, Penn., on the phone to help confirm his age. Peck sealed the Muse court proceeding and asked reporters and others to leave the courtroom while the question of his age, raised by his defense attorneys, was addressed.

Now, Muse has been brought to face justice in an American courtroom," Dassin said.Įarlier Tuesday, U.S. Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse and his fellow pirates attacked an American crew and its American captain on a ship flying an American flag. prisonthough he was tried as an adult, he and the other hijackers were reportedly all. "Today's charges demonstrate our commitment to hold pirates accountable for their crimes. The surviving pirate, Abduwali Muse, was taken into custody and later sentenced to over 33 years in U.S.
