![]() Attempts to negotiate failed, and at one point the pirates fired (harmlessly) at the destroyer. What followed was a three-day standoff, with the pirates holding Phillips in the lifeboat. After one of their number was injured fighting with the ship’s crew, the other three pirates fled in a lifeboat, taking Phillips with them in the hopes of using him as a bargaining chip.Įarly the next morning, the destroyer USS Bainbridge and another U.S. Chief Engineer Mike Perry got most of the crew to a safe room and managed to swamp the pirates’ craft by swinging his ship’s rudder, but the pirates were nonetheless able to board and take Phillips hostage. On April 8, the crew saw a skiff carrying four armed pirates approaching the ship and initiated the protocol for such an event. Just a day before the attack, the Maersk Alabama received warning from the United States government to stay at least 600 miles off the coast of Somalia, but Captain Richard Phillips kept the ship about 240 miles from the coast, a decision which was later criticized by members of his crew. The high-profile incident drew worldwide attention to the problem of piracy, commonly believed to be a thing of the past, in the waters off the Horn of Africa.ĭecades of instability in Somalia and the accompanying lack of policing in its territorial waters led to a resurgence of piracy in the region that peaked in the late 2000s. In 2010, the United Nations suspended the delivery of food assistance in southern Somalia due to growing insecurity from armed groups in the region.Pirates had not captured a ship sailing under the American flag since the 1820s until April 8, 2009, when the MV Maersk Alabama was hijacked off the coast of Somalia. ![]() One in six Somali children is acutely malnourished, considered the highest acute malnutrition rate in the world, according to a recent U.N. His attorneys had asked for leniency, citing the impoverished conditions in the war-torn country in which the 19-year-old had lived. He twice tried to take his own life, Doherty said. Muse was the only survivor among the men who hijacked the Alabama and was commonly kept in solitary confinement while awaiting trial, according to his defense attorney Fiona Doherty. Somalia-based pirates often hijack ships to be used as bases, or mother ships, for launching further attacks, using the ships' crews as "human shields," the organization said in a written statement. Some 685 sailors are currently being held for ransom aboard 30 ships off the Somali coastline, according to the International Maritime Organization. Until last year, there had not been a piracy-related conviction in the United States since 1861, during the Civil War, officials said. Phillips returned to sea about a year after that attack and was not reassigned to the Alabama. Later, many of those crew members told CNN that Phillips had ignored several explicit warnings that urged him to stay away from the shipping lanes where the attack took place. Phillips was initially hailed as a hero for his actions in exchanging himself for the safety of his crew. Navy SEALs ultimately rescued the ship's captain, Richard Phillips, while he was held hostage in a lifeboat not far from the Alabama. The attack occurred in the Gulf of Aden between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. ![]() "Now he will pay for those five days and the events leading up to them." "For five days that must have seemed like an eternity to his victims, Abduwali Abukhadir Muse terrorized the captain and crew of the Maersk Alabama," said Manhattan U.S. He pleaded guilty on May 18, 2010, to two felony counts of hijacking maritime vessels, two felony counts of kidnapping, and two felony counts of hostage taking, according to a U.S. Muse was also sentenced for his participation in the hijacking of two other vessels in late March and early April of 2009, which also involved the taking of hostages. He asked "forgiveness for all the people I harmed and the U.S. "I was recruited by people more powerful than me." "I'm sorry very much for what happened to victims on ship, I am very sorry about what I caused," Muse said. He was sentenced to 405 months in prison. New York (CNN) - A federal court sentenced a Somali man to nearly 34 years in prison Wednesday for acts related to high-seas piracy after he and three other men hijacked a U.S.-flagged ship as it cruised past the Horn of Africa.Ībduwali Abukhadir Muse pleaded guilty to the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama and for subsequently taking the ship's captain hostage.
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