Suspected pirate faces new charges
Associated Press

NEW YORK - A Somalian suspect accused of staging a brazen high-seas attack on a U.S.-flagged ship off Africa last year pleaded not guilty yesterday to new piracy charges involving two other vessels, including one that authorities said was still being held hostage.

A new indictment alleges that Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse and others tried to seize the two ships in the Indian Ocean in the weeks leading up to their widely publicized capture of the Maersk Alabama.

The court papers, which did not name the other ships, say Muse threatened to kill the crew of the first vessel with "what appeared to be an improvised explosive device" after its capture in March. They say that the pirates used the first ship to seize the second one in April.

Some of the second crew "are still being held," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan McGuire.
Outside court, defense attorney Fiona Doherty said she needed more time to study the new charges before commenting.

Muse has been held in Manhattan since he was captured April 12 and flown to the United States to face what's believed to be the first U.S. piracy prosecution in more than a century. He pleaded not guilty to piracy under the law of nations, hostage-taking, and other charges.

Prosecutors said Muse was the ringleader of a band of four pirates who provoked a deadly drama by targeting the Maersk Alabama on April 8 as it carried humanitarian goods 280 miles off Somalia.

A criminal complaint said he was the first to board the boat, firing his AK-47 assault rifle toward the captain, Richard Phillips, telling the captain to stop the ship and "conducted himself as the leader of the pirates."

The four held Phillips, of Underhill, Vt., hostage for days on a sweltering, enclosed lifeboat. The standoff ended when Navy snipers, in shadowing warships, killed three of the pirates.

Muse's age has been in dispute. In April, his lawyers insisted he was 15 and should be tried as a juvenile. Prosecutors convinced a judge he was at least 18.