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Pirate Suspect Charged as Adult in New York
On Tuesday, less than two weeks after the government says Mr. Muse and three other men took command of an American cargo ship off the coast of Africa, Mr. Muse was sitting in a packed courtroom, almost swallowed up by a large chair, his left hand bandaged heavily, as lawyers and a federal magistrate judge wrestled for more than an hour just to figure out how old he was.
The judge, Andrew J. Peck, over objections of prosecutors and reporters, emptied the courtroom, then listened as Mr. Muse’s father, via a telephone hookup from Somalia and through an interpreter, testified that his son was born Nov. 20, 1993 — making him 15.
But a New York police detective, Frederick Galloway, who went to Africa as part of an investigative team, told the judge that Mr. Muse, after giving different ages, said he had been untruthful, apologized and said he was “between 18 and 19.”
“He also said, ‘I’m sorry for lying to you,’ ” Detective Galloway testified. “He said, ‘When I pray again, I’ll ask Allah to forgive me for lying to you, and I won’t lie to you again.’ ”
Mr. Muse was charged with five counts on Tuesday, the most serious of which was “the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations,” and after the judge declared that he was an adult, he was ordered held without bail.
The head of the F.B.I. in New York, Joseph M. Demarest Jr., said in a statement: “Modern-day pirates bear little resemblance to the swashbuckling antiheroes of popular fiction.” He called Mr. Muse and his band “armed hijackers who robbed the ship, threatened the crew and held the captain hostage at gunpoint.” **
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/ny...ef=todayspaper
When the City Held Pirates in High Regard
By JIM DWYER
Give or take, it is 5,000 miles from the Indian Ocean off Somalia to the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan. That is a vast distance, but few places on earth can match New York for its history of hospitality to pirates.
On Tuesday, the accused Somalian pirate man — or gullible boy, if you believe his parents, or possible victim of kidnappers, as his lawyer speculates — arrived in shackles and jumpsuit for arraignment on charges that he committed piracy on the high seas. Even worse, he is said to have totally bungled the job.
It has been many decades since a good pirate case has landed here, and for now, the laws and penalties are stacked to the skies against the defendant, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse; gangster capitalism has its limits.
History shows that the city has long held pirates in high regard. Successful ones, that is. Under Col. Benjamin Fletcher, who became the British governor of New York in 1692, piracy was a leading economic development tool in the city’s competition with the ports of Boston and Philadelphia.
At the time, Britain and France were at war, a nearly chronic condition, and each country commissioned private vessels to attack the other side’s ships. These privateers carried “letters of marque” that granted them authority to seize enemy cargo, which they were supposed to bring to a court for proper disposition.
It turned out that it was far more profitable to simply skip the legal requirements and board any vulnerable ship, no matter whether it was flying the flag of friend or foe. The big challenge was to find a port where pirated goods — rather than those seized under the privateering laws — could be sold.
In Governor Fletcher, the pirates found a most willing host, who could be bought for 100 Spanish dollars, according to Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace in “Gotham” (Oxford University Press 1998). Pirate money pulsed through New York. “This boodling was worth a hundred thousand pounds a year to the city,” they wrote. “Tavern keepers, whores, retailers and others flourished as buccaneers swaggered through the streets with purses full of hard money — Arabian dinars, Hindustani mohurs, Greek byzants, French louis d’or, Spanish doubloons.”
AMONG the most successful privateers of the era was Captain William Kidd, who was hanged in England after being convicted of piracy. Kidd used some of his wealth to build a fine home and helped establish the first Trinity Church, which to this day remains one of the city’s most important landowners. Other financiers of piracy, whose names endure in various forms around New York, were Frederick Philipse, Stephanus Van Cortlandt, Peter Schuyler and Thomas Willet.
During the Revolutionary War, privateering became a vital element in the rebellion against England. One merchant, John Broome, moved to Connecticut to set up a privateering operation that worked Long Island Sound.
It was not only tactically useful, but a lucrative business as well, with thousands of American seamen involved in one way or another, said Mr. Burrows.
But New York’s long entanglement with pirates is not necessarily good news for Mr. Muse. “I don’t think he has deep pockets,” Mr. Burrows said. “They brought him to the right town at the wrong time. The place was only hospitable if you had money to show.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/ny...l?ref=nyregion
**Blackbeard the Pirate
Blackbeard (18th century lithograph)
According to Charles Johnson, Blackbeard fought a running duel with the British thirty-gun man-of-war HMS Scarborough, which added to his notoriety. However, neither the Scarborough's log nor the official letters of its captain have any mention of such an encounter; historian Colin Woodard provides evidence suggesting Johnson confused and conflated two actual events: the Scarborough's battle against John Martel's band and Blackbeard's close encounter with another warship, HMS Seaford.[6]
Blackbeard would plunder merchant ships, forcing them to allow his crew to board their ship. The pirates would seize all of the valuables, food, liquor, and weapons. Despite his ferocious reputation, there are no verified accounts of him actually killing anyone.[7] He deliberately cultivated his barbaric reputation, and so could prevail by terror alone.[8]
However, colorful legends and vivid contemporary newspaper portrayals had him committing acts of cruelty and terror. One tale claims he shot his own first mate, saying "if he didn’t shoot one or two crewmen now and then, they’d forget who he was." Another legend is that having had too much to drink, he said to his crew, "Come, let us make a hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it." Going into the ship's hold, they closed the hatches, filled several pots with brimstone and set it on fire. Soon the men were coughing and gasping for air from the sulphurous fumes. All except Blackbeard scrambled out for fresh air. When Blackbeard emerged, he snarled, "Damn ye, ye yellow-bellied sapsuckers! I'm a better man than all ye milksops put together!"[9] According to Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates:
The story of Blackbeard's treatment of his fourteenth wife, or even whether she was his fourteenth wife, has been called into question by some. Thatch was away at sea for most of his adult life, leaving little time for continual marriages, and no records exist for his other thirteen wives. Many primary documents also attest to Blackbeard's merciful tendencies when it came to bystanders, which casts doubt onto the allegations that he'd subjected his teenage wife to gang rape.[10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard
The trial should be revealing. Everything else has. :eek:
On Tuesday, less than two weeks after the government says Mr. Muse and three other men took command of an American cargo ship off the coast of Africa, Mr. Muse was sitting in a packed courtroom, almost swallowed up by a large chair, his left hand bandaged heavily, as lawyers and a federal magistrate judge wrestled for more than an hour just to figure out how old he was.
The judge, Andrew J. Peck, over objections of prosecutors and reporters, emptied the courtroom, then listened as Mr. Muse’s father, via a telephone hookup from Somalia and through an interpreter, testified that his son was born Nov. 20, 1993 — making him 15.
But a New York police detective, Frederick Galloway, who went to Africa as part of an investigative team, told the judge that Mr. Muse, after giving different ages, said he had been untruthful, apologized and said he was “between 18 and 19.”
“He also said, ‘I’m sorry for lying to you,’ ” Detective Galloway testified. “He said, ‘When I pray again, I’ll ask Allah to forgive me for lying to you, and I won’t lie to you again.’ ”
Mr. Muse was charged with five counts on Tuesday, the most serious of which was “the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations,” and after the judge declared that he was an adult, he was ordered held without bail.
The head of the F.B.I. in New York, Joseph M. Demarest Jr., said in a statement: “Modern-day pirates bear little resemblance to the swashbuckling antiheroes of popular fiction.” He called Mr. Muse and his band “armed hijackers who robbed the ship, threatened the crew and held the captain hostage at gunpoint.” **
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/ny...ef=todayspaper
On Tuesday, the accused Somalian pirate man — or gullible boy, if you believe his parents, or possible victim of kidnappers, as his lawyer speculates — arrived in shackles and jumpsuit for arraignment on charges that he committed piracy on the high seas. Even worse, he is said to have totally bungled the job.
It has been many decades since a good pirate case has landed here, and for now, the laws and penalties are stacked to the skies against the defendant, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse; gangster capitalism has its limits.
History shows that the city has long held pirates in high regard. Successful ones, that is. Under Col. Benjamin Fletcher, who became the British governor of New York in 1692, piracy was a leading economic development tool in the city’s competition with the ports of Boston and Philadelphia.
At the time, Britain and France were at war, a nearly chronic condition, and each country commissioned private vessels to attack the other side’s ships. These privateers carried “letters of marque” that granted them authority to seize enemy cargo, which they were supposed to bring to a court for proper disposition.
It turned out that it was far more profitable to simply skip the legal requirements and board any vulnerable ship, no matter whether it was flying the flag of friend or foe. The big challenge was to find a port where pirated goods — rather than those seized under the privateering laws — could be sold.
In Governor Fletcher, the pirates found a most willing host, who could be bought for 100 Spanish dollars, according to Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace in “Gotham” (Oxford University Press 1998). Pirate money pulsed through New York. “This boodling was worth a hundred thousand pounds a year to the city,” they wrote. “Tavern keepers, whores, retailers and others flourished as buccaneers swaggered through the streets with purses full of hard money — Arabian dinars, Hindustani mohurs, Greek byzants, French louis d’or, Spanish doubloons.”
AMONG the most successful privateers of the era was Captain William Kidd, who was hanged in England after being convicted of piracy. Kidd used some of his wealth to build a fine home and helped establish the first Trinity Church, which to this day remains one of the city’s most important landowners. Other financiers of piracy, whose names endure in various forms around New York, were Frederick Philipse, Stephanus Van Cortlandt, Peter Schuyler and Thomas Willet.
During the Revolutionary War, privateering became a vital element in the rebellion against England. One merchant, John Broome, moved to Connecticut to set up a privateering operation that worked Long Island Sound.
It was not only tactically useful, but a lucrative business as well, with thousands of American seamen involved in one way or another, said Mr. Burrows.
But New York’s long entanglement with pirates is not necessarily good news for Mr. Muse. “I don’t think he has deep pockets,” Mr. Burrows said. “They brought him to the right town at the wrong time. The place was only hospitable if you had money to show.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/ny...l?ref=nyregion
**Blackbeard the Pirate
Blackbeard (18th century lithograph)
According to Charles Johnson, Blackbeard fought a running duel with the British thirty-gun man-of-war HMS Scarborough, which added to his notoriety. However, neither the Scarborough's log nor the official letters of its captain have any mention of such an encounter; historian Colin Woodard provides evidence suggesting Johnson confused and conflated two actual events: the Scarborough's battle against John Martel's band and Blackbeard's close encounter with another warship, HMS Seaford.[6]
Blackbeard would plunder merchant ships, forcing them to allow his crew to board their ship. The pirates would seize all of the valuables, food, liquor, and weapons. Despite his ferocious reputation, there are no verified accounts of him actually killing anyone.[7] He deliberately cultivated his barbaric reputation, and so could prevail by terror alone.[8]
However, colorful legends and vivid contemporary newspaper portrayals had him committing acts of cruelty and terror. One tale claims he shot his own first mate, saying "if he didn’t shoot one or two crewmen now and then, they’d forget who he was." Another legend is that having had too much to drink, he said to his crew, "Come, let us make a hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it." Going into the ship's hold, they closed the hatches, filled several pots with brimstone and set it on fire. Soon the men were coughing and gasping for air from the sulphurous fumes. All except Blackbeard scrambled out for fresh air. When Blackbeard emerged, he snarled, "Damn ye, ye yellow-bellied sapsuckers! I'm a better man than all ye milksops put together!"[9] According to Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates:
| “ | Before he sailed upon his adventures, he married a young creature of about sixteen years of age . . . and this I have been informed, made Teach's fourteenth wife . . . with whom after he had lain all night, it was his custom to invite five or six of his brutal companions to come ashore, and he would force her to prostitute herself to them all, one after another, before his face. | ” |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard
The trial should be revealing. Everything else has. :eek: