Muse faces a maximum sentence of almost 34 years behind bars when he is sentenced on October 19. He pleaded guilty to felony counts of hijacking maritime vessels, kidnapping and hostage taking, for his role in the hijacking of the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama in the Indian Ocean on April 8, 2009. vessel off the coast of Africa last year pleaded guilty in New York on Tuesday to charges he hijacked the ship and kidnapped the captain.ĭressed in a dark grey prison uniform, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse entered federal court in New York with his head down and his hands behind his back. © 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc.New York (CNN) - A Somali pirate who prosecutors say led the attack on a U.S. Under terms of his plea deal, Muse faces 27 to 33 3/4 years in the slammer when he’s sentenced Feb. Muse’s lawyers also note his mom’s claim that he is “currently 17 or 18” years old, in contrast to government assertions that he’s 21. The defense cited unspecified “significant mental health problems” that Muse has suffered behind bars, along with a brutally impoverished childhood that made the “temptations of piracy” impossible to resist. Muse’s lawyers filed the papers in a bid for leniency in the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, whose captain, Richard Phillips, was held hostage for several days until US Navy snipers killed Muse’s three accomplices. The defense also says that the August 2009 calls came more than a month after Victor claims to have heard about the threat, and that Victor has “credibility problems,” suggesting that the Serenity may have been carrying a shipment of drugs when it was hijacked.Īlthough the order subjecting Muse to solitary confinement expired last month, “MCC staff have recently decided that he will remain in isolation pending review by the warden,” the court papers say.

Muse’s lawyers deny that he threatened the Win Far 161’s captain, insisting that the feds “mistranslated” certain Somali words and “misinterpreted” his phone conversations with a woman they identify as his mother. The Win Far 161, a Taiwanese fishing vessel with a crew of about 30, was hijacked in April 2009 and held for 10 months until its owner paid an unspecified ransom to secure its release. “According to the government, Victor’s account was corroborated by ‘two of Muse’s prison call recordings,'” the Manhattan federal court filing says. The directive followed an FBI interview of Gilbert Victor, the freed captain of a hijacked yacht named the Serenity, who said a Somali pirate told him that Muse “had sent a message from prison ‘instructing the pirate crew to kill the captain of the Win Far 161.'”

The Somali pirate who led the 2009 hijacking of an American cargo ship was locked up in solitary confinement for allegedly ordering the murder of another hijacked vessel’s captain from jail, court papers filed this morning reveal.Ībduwali Abdukhadir Muse was tossed into a “small cell with blackened windows” in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center on orders from Attorney General Eric Holder on Jan.

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