Papa Was a Blundering Stone: Father’s Confusion &/or Inept Obfuscation Results in Muse Being Charged as an Adult

Today in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in Lower Manhattan, half a mile from the piracy-free East River and 5,000 miles from the piracy-rich Somali coast, Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, the lone surviving alleged pirate from the attack on the United States-flagged cargo ship Maersk Alabama, was charged as an adult with piracy, conspiracy to seize a ship by force, discharging a firearm, aiding and abetting the discharge of a firearm during a conspiracy to seize a ship by force, conspiracy to commit hostage taking and brandishing a firearm. The piracy charge alone carries a mandatory life sentence.
An estimated 200 spectators squeezed into courtroom 5A, eventually necessitating an overflow room, for the start of the first major piracy trial in the U.S. since the 19th century. As no cameras were allowed in the courthouse, four late-middle-aged, pastel-and-charcoal wielding women set up in the front benches to sketch the scene using surprising divergent color schemes. Two Assistant U.S. Attorneys, an FBI agent and an NYPD officer were to the left of the crowd and Federal Public Defenders Phil Weinstein and Deirdre von Dornum were positioned across the aisle. To their right, in a blue prison jumpsuit too big by an order of magnitude, with his left hand swallowed by rolls of bandages covering a knife wound and airplane-style headphones hanging from his head which danged atop his gaunt 5’2 frame, sat the softly sobbing star of the proceedings.
At issue today was the question of whether Mr. Muse was at least 18 years old and could therefore be tried as an adult. Initially, upon being detained on a U.S. Navy vessel on April 12, Muse told a Somali interpreter that he was 16 years old, then 19 and then 26. The following day Muse claimed to be 19 and later told the FBI that he was 15, then apologized for lying and said he was really 18 going on 19. Muse’s brother told investigators he was 18 and Muse’s parents claimed he was 16. Muse himself did not testify in court.
Whatever parental merits Mr. Muse’s father, Abdilkadir Muse, may have were, sadly for his eldest, not in evidence during Abdilkadir’s testimony from Somalia via a Somali translator via phone in a closed hearing today. Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck, upon reopening the courtroom, explained that the father stated that the defendant, his firstborn, was born on November 20, 1993 and his second oldest was born around July 1997. When asked when his fourth child was born, Abdilkadir stated that he was not present for that birth which occurred in 1990. Peck, noting that it is unusual that a father knows the day his oldest was born, but only vaguely recalls the month his second-oldest was born and offered a birthday for his fourth child which is wildly inconsistent with the rest of the timeline, determined that the father was not credible. Relying on the FBI’s testimony, Peck determined the defendant was 18 and thus eligible to be tried as an adult.