Court Finds Somalis Guilty of Piracy
The NY Times reports:
Five Somali men accused of attacking a United States Navy warship off the African coast were found guilty Wednesday in what the government said was the first piracy conviction in an American courtroom since 1819.
The verdict was handed down by a jury in Federal District Court. The five men stood silently as the verdict was read to them by an interpreter. They face mandatory life terms at a sentencing hearing set for March 14 here.
Their lawyers said the men did not fully grasp the trial, the charges or the verdict.
“He does understand he will die in a U.S. prison, ” said Jon M. Babineau, who represented one of the defendants, Abdi Mohammed Gurewardher. “He understands that.”
Defense lawyers had argued that the men were innocent fishermen who had been abducted by pirates and forced to fire their weapons at the warship, the Nicholas, a guided-missile frigate based in Norfolk.
But federal prosecutors said the five had confessed to attacking the Nicholas on April 1 after mistaking it for a merchant ship.
The government said the conviction should send a message to pirates who continued to harass merchant ships off the coast of Africa and take hostages.
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