A Somali pirate who attacked a U.S.-flagged ship off the coast of Africa in 2009 was sentenced to more than 33 years in prison Wednesday by an emotional judge who said a long sentence was necessary to deter others and punish the only survivor among a group of pirates who "appeared to relish their most depraved acts."
U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska sometimes became choked up as she described the harm Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse brought to the crew aboard a merchant ship in the Indian Ocean.
She ordered Muse to serve 33 years and nine months in prison, rejecting a plea for leniency by his defense lawyers.
The tense standoff that ensued after Muse and his fellow pirates held the captain of the Maersk Alabama hostage after the April 8, 2009, attack ended when Navy sharpshooters killed three of Muse's men and freed the Master, Captain Richard Phillips of Underhill, Vt.
Late last year, a Virginia jury found five other Somali men guilty of exchanging gunfire with a U.S. Navy ship off the coast of Africa.
The Maersk Alabama was boarded by the pirates as it transported humanitarian supplies about 280 miles off the coast of Somalia, an impoverished East African nation of about 10 million people, Muse was the first to board the 500-foot ship, firing his AK-47 assault rifle at the captain, prosecutors said and he ordered Phillips to halt the vessel and then held him hostage on a sweltering, enclosed lifeboat that was soon shadowed by three U.S. warships and a helicopter.
The English-speaking Muse taunted Phillips by threatening to "bury him in a shallow area of the ocean" and by telling his captive he "liked having hijacked an American ship and wanted to kill Americans," the government's court papers said.
The siege ended when Navy sharpshooters on the USS Bainbridge picked off the three pirates in a stunning night time operation, leaving Phillips untouched.
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