Pirates face unprecedented trial in U.S. court

Suspected pirates face unprecedented trial in U.S. court
In the first U.S. trial of its kind in modern times, three Somalis face
murder charges in the deaths of four Americans after hijacking their sailboat
in 2011. Somali piracy since then has all but vanished.

By Shashank Bengali, Los Angeles Times
June 1, 2013

WASHINGTON — Long before a retired Southern California couple and two
friends were shot and killed aboard their sailboat off the Horn of Africa in
February 2011, the threat from Somali pirates was frighteningly clear.

Since 2005, heavily armed Somalis in jury-rigged speedboats had hijacked
scores of oil tankers, cargo ships and private yachts, holding hundreds of
crew members hostage for lucrative ransoms. The brigands had crippled
shipping in some of the world's busiest sea lanes, costing companies an estimated
$5 billion a year.

But as three accused pirates face trial Tuesday in Norfolk, Va., on charges
of murder in the deaths of the four Americans, the first U.S. trial of its
kind in modern times, Somali piracy is in sharp decline.

An international naval operation, combined with aggressive prosecutions and
shipboard security measures, have nearly halted the Indian Ocean crime
wave in the last two years. Dozens of nations have deployed warships, U.S.
Navy drones have provided aerial surveillance, European jets have struck
pirate lairs, and 21 countries have jailed more than 1,100 suspected pirates.

Some governments, including Iran, China and India, also have taken
unilateral action, sending warships to escort convoys of tankers and commercial
ships through waters once infested with pirates.

"It's really remarkable. I hope some historian is watching this," said
Donna Hopkins, a U.S. diplomat who chairs the Contact Group on Piracy off the
Coast of Somalia, an umbrella group of more than 60 countries and
international organizations.

"It's totally voluntary; it's not coercive; no one is in charge," Hopkins
said. "The simple fact is that everyone hates pirates."

Somali pirates, many armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled
grenades, staged 176 attacks in 2011, the year the four Americans were killed.
The pirates captured 25 ships and netted an estimated $160 million in ransom
for the ships and crews that year, according to Oceans Beyond Piracy, an
advocacy group based in Colorado.

In contrast, the pirates have launched three attacks so far this year. The
last successful hijacking was more than a year ago.

The international naval response costs more than $1 billion a year, but
U.S. officials and shipping industry leaders consider that money well spent.
Nearly three-quarters of the world's traded oil and half the container
traffic passes through the Indian Ocean.

"The sheer weight of the military effort has pretty much removed the
pirates' ability to operate with impunity," said Royal Australian Navy Capt.
Robert Slaven, director of operations for the Combined Maritime Forces, which
has ships from the United States and more than two dozen other countries. It
is one of three naval coalitions that has sent armadas to the area.

New security measures aboard merchant ships also have helped. Some crews
now unroll razor wire over the sides to prevent pirates from clambering
aboard, fire high-powered water cannons or ear-piercing sirens to keep small
boats at bay, or take refuge in fortified rooms.

New industry guidelines instruct ships to travel in packs, and at greater
speed, when transiting high-risk areas. Experts say half the ships in the
region now carry teams of armed guards, many hired from private American
security companies, to ride shotgun against pirate attacks.

U.S. officials say Somali pirates have never hijacked a ship that had armed
guards.

"This has been a real game-changer in the effort to combat piracy," Andrew
Shapiro, an assistant secretary of State, told Congress in April.

Kevin Doherty, president of Nexus Consulting Group, based in Arlington,
Va., said his company had put armed guards on about 450 ships in the Indian
Ocean since 2009. None have engaged in a gunfight, but they have fired
warning shots three times, he said.

"The Barbary pirates went away," said Doherty, referring to the North
African privateers who terrorized the Mediterranean from the 16th to 19th
centuries. "Same way, Somali piracy is on its way out."

A few cases have drawn attention, however. Last year, a video surfaced of
guards employed by Trident Group, based in Virginia Beach, Va., firing
dozens of rounds as two skiffs approached a freighter in March 2011.

Trident officials said the guards had spotted rocket-propelled grenades
aboard the skiffs and had fired warning shots before opening fire. It's
unknown whether the skiffs carried pirates, or if whether anyone was killed or
wounded.

U.S. officials say Somalia's growing political stability could end the
anarchy that allowed pirates to operate from safe havens along the lawless
northern coast. But unclassified U.S. naval intelligence reports still include
near-weekly sightings of suspicious fishing boats — some carrying boarding
ladders and weapons — in shipping lanes off Somalia.

"The moment the ships relax or the navies withdraw, the pirates will be
back in force," said Pottengal Mukundan, director of the International
Maritime Bureau, a trade group. "It's very easy for them to remobilize."

The four Americans aboard the Quest — Scott and Jean Adam of Marina del Rey
and their friends, Robert Riggle and Phyllis Macay, of Seattle — were
sailing west from Mumbai, India, toward Djibouti on Feb. 18, 2011, when pirates
seized the 58-foot sloop.

Scott Adam, a former TV producer who had worked on "The Love Boat" and "The
Dukes of Hazzard," and his wife had spent seven years sailing the globe,
distributing Bibles at many of their stops.

After getting an SOS, the U.S. Navy sent the Sterett, a destroyer, to tail
the sailboat through the Gulf of Aden and try to persuade the pirates to
surrender.

But negotiations broke down after four days. U.S. prosecutors say the
pirates then killed the four hostages. Navy SEALs subsequently killed two men
and captured 15.

A federal judge in Norfolk last year sentenced one of the group to multiple
life terms for trying to negotiate a ransom for the Quest and a second
hijacked ship. Eleven others have pleaded guilty or have been convicted of
piracy. Each was sentenced to life in prison.

Prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty for the final three —
Ahmed Muse Salad, Abukar Osman Beyle and Shani Nurani Shiekh Abrar — in their
trial, set to start this week in U.S. District Court in Norfolk. They have
pleaded not guilty.