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Somali pirates will face death penalty in federal trial in Virginia

For two days, the four Americans held aboard their yacht by Somali pirates had been shadowed in the Indian Ocean by a U.S. aircraft carrier, two guided-missile destroyers and a cruiser. The U.S. military and FBI agents wanted to negotiate; the pirates wanted to reach land.

When one of the destroyers neared the 58-foot sailing boat, gunfire erupted. By the time Navy SEALs reached the Quest, the four Americans had been fatally shot — the first time U.S. citizens were killed in a wave of piracy that has rippled out from the coast of Somalia in recent years.

On Tuesday, a federal court in Virginia will begin jury selection in the capital trial of three Somali pirates charged in the February 2011 deaths of Scott and Jean Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif., and Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle.

Eleven of the pirates who attacked the Quest pleaded guilty in federal court in 2011 and were given life sentences. The onshore negotiator was also captured and given multiple life sentences in federal court in Virginia.

Federal prosecutors allege that the defendants going on trial this week — Ahmed Muse Salad, Abukar Osman Beyle and Shani Nurani Shiekh Abrar — were the ones who shot and killed the four Americans aboard the U.S.-flagged Quest.


Source: The Washington Post, June 4, 2013
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