PilotOnline
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
NORFOLK, VA - Eight Somali men have agreed to plead guilty to taking part in the hijacking of an American yacht that left four U.S. citizens dead.
Three of the Somalis are scheduled to be in U.S. District Court on Friday. According to court records and the lawyers involved, two will plead guilty to one count of piracy and one count of hostage taking. They will face life in prison when they are sentenced at a later date. The third also will plead guilty, but the charges he is admitting to have not yet been made public.
Five others captured by the Navy during the attack of the yacht Quest are scheduled to plead guilty next week, the court filings say.
He said Ali, 32, will plead guilty Friday to hostage taking and piracy.
As part of the plea deal, the Somalis have agreed to testify against others in the case who were directly responsible for the shooting deaths of the boat's owners, Scott and Jean Adam of Los Angeles, and their friends Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle.
The Quest was hijacked in the Arabian Sea in mid-February. The four were shot and killed as the Navy was trying to negotiate their release.
U.S. officials said they believe 19 pirates hijacked the Quest. They were headed back toward Somalia when there was, essentially, a mutiny.
Babineau said his client had been the leader of the pirate attack but that another group disagreed with his plan and took over the boat. It was those pirates who killed the Americans, he said.
"He did not want them to die, and it was never his intent for them to be killed," Babineau said. "He simply wanted to go back to Somalia and hold the boat for ransom. Others had more extreme ideas. Sadly enough, those others won out, and tragically, the others were killed."
On Feb. 22, four days after the Quest hijacking, U.S. Navy warships had surrounded the sloop, and officials were trying to negotiate for the release of the hostages. The pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade toward one of the Navy ships. Sailors then heard gunfire from the Quest and quickly launched a raid team.
When the team boarded the Quest, they found the four Americans shot and four pirates lying dead as well. The team captured the remaining Somalis and one Yemeni. One, a juvenile, was sent home and the rest brought here for prosecution.
Norfolk defense attorney Robert Rigney said his client, Burhan Abdirahman Yusuf, 31, will plead guilty Monday. Yusuf will cooperate with the government and testify against others if he has to, with the hope of getting time shaved off his sentence, Rigney said.
"With a plea of guilty, there's an opportunity to go home and see his family again," Rigney said. "If you go to trial and get life, life is life in the federal system."
According to the indictment, three of the other defendants shot and killed the Americans. The government has said it may seek the death penalty against them, but no decision has been made yet.
Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, [email protected]