Somali pirates convicted of attacking US Navy ship

There be pirates - and they are headed to jail!

BBC report: Somali pirates convicted of attacking US Navy ship:

Five young Somali men face life in prison after being convicted of piracy in the April attack on a US Navy ship.

Prosecutors said the men attacked the USS Nicholas after mistaking it for a merchant ship and were out for as much as $40,000 (£24,800) in ransom money.

But the men's lawyers maintained the five only fired their weapons to attract attention and get help.

The verdict is the first in a piracy case in the US in nearly 200 years. The men face a mandatory life sentence.

The five men were convicted of piracy, attacking to plunder a maritime vessel, and assault with a dangerous weapon.

They were arrested in April, along with six others who were captured a few days later in waters near Djibouti after allegedly shooting at the USS Ashland, an amphibious vessel.

Lawyers for the men said they were fishermen who had been forced by pirates to attack the ship.

Now, you know this going to get appealed because another U.S. District Judge in Norfolk has ruled that without a "robbery" component, the crime is not piracy. See discussion here and the links therein.

More on this decision later.

UPDATE: More from the AP here:

John S. Davis, an assistant U.S. attorney, had argued that three of the men were in a skiff that opened fire on the Nicholas with assault rifles, then fled when sailors returned fire with machine guns.

Davis said all the men later confessed to the attack in a confession to an interpreter aboard the Nicholas. He said they expected to make anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 from the ransom.
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Other countries have recently held piracy trials, but legal and maritime scholars say one of the last in the U.S. was in 1861 when 13 Southern privateers aboard the schooner Savannah were prosecuted in New York City. The jury deadlocked.

Somali "Pirates?" - Definition issue in new U.S. pirate trials

As set out in Federal courts in Norfolk wrestle over definition of piracy from The Virginia Pilot:

For the first time since the 19th century, piracy suspects will go on trial in a federal court in a case that legal experts see as precedent-setting.

Already there are conflicting rulings in the cases against two groups of Somali nationals charged with attacking Navy ships off the Horn of Africa earlier this year.

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U.S. District Judge Mark S. Davis last month upheld piracy and related charges in a 14-count indictment against the five Somalis charged in the April 1 attack on the Nicholas, a Norfolk-based frigate.

Davis' conclusion was opposite the one reached by Judge Raymond A. Jackson, sitting two floors below Davis in the same courthouse, in August in a case involving the April 10 attack on the Ashland, based at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek.

Jackson determined that he must interpret the piracy statute as it was meant at the time it was enacted, which was 1819. He found, citing an 1820 Supreme Court case, that piracy is defined only as robbery at sea. Since there was no robbery of the Ashland, he threw out the piracy charge. The government appealed and the case was halted.

Dueling judicial opinions, disagreeing law professors and a bunch of thugs getting ready for trial.

What fun.

You can find the Judge Davis decision in U.S. v. Hasan here. UPDATE:My upload of a less commerical version: Hasan Piracy Op 178!

And the Judge Jackson decision in U.S. v. Said can be downloaded here.

Lots of good discussion over at Opinio Juris and at the links therein.

UPDATE: And an earlier post on the possible Said case appeal here.