US Capt. freed, three Somali pirates dead, one in custody
WASHINGTON (AP) – The captured Somali pirate is now in U.S. military custody.
FBI spokesman John Miller says that will change as the situation becomes “more of a criminal issue than a military issue.”
The Justice Department is reviewing evidence and considering whether to file criminal charges against the pirate captured in a hostage standoff on the high seas.
Department spokesman Dean Boyd says prosecutors are looking at “evidence and other issues” to determine whether to bring a case in the United States.
Attorney General Eric Holder said this past week that the U.S. hasn’t seen a case of piracy against an American ship in hundreds of years. U.S. prosecutors do have jurisdiction to bring charges when a crime is committed against a U.S. citizen or on a U.S. ship.
An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a swift firefight that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, the ship’s owner said.
A senior U.S. intelligence official said a pirate who had been involved in negotiations to free Capt. Richard Phillips but who was not on the lifeboat was in custody.
Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was safely transported to a Navy warship nearby.
Maersk Line Limited President and CEO John Reinhart said in a news release that the U.S. government informed the company around 1:30 p.m. EDT Sunday that Phillips had been rescued. Reinhart said the company called Phillips’ wife, Andrea, to tell her the news.
The U.S. official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. A Pentagon spokesman had no immediate comment.
When Phillips’ crew heard the news aboard their ship in the port of Mombasa, they placed an American flag over the rail of the top of the Maersk Alabama and whistled and pumped their fists in the air. Crew fired a bright red flare into the sky from the ship.
“We made it!” said crewman ATM Reza, pumping his fist in the air.
“He managed to be in a 120-degree oven for days, it’s amazing,” said another of about a dozen crew members who came out to talk to reporters. He said the crew found out the captain was released because one of the sailors had been talking to his wife on the phone.
Capt. Joseph Murphy, the father of second-in-command Shane Murphy, thanked Phillips for his bravery.
“Our prayers have been answered on this Easter Sunday. I have made it clear throughout this terrible ordeal that my son and our family will forever be indebted to Capt. Phillips for his bravery,” Murphy said. “If not for his incredible personal sacrifice, this kidnapping and act of terror could have turned out much worse.”
In the written statement, Murphy said both his family and Phillips’ “can now celebrate a joyous Easter together.”
Terry Aiken, 66, who lives across the street from the Phillips house, fought back tears as he reacted to the news.
“I’m very, very happy,” Aiken said. “I can’t be happier for him and his family.”
A government official and others in Somalia with knowledge of the situation had reported hours earlier that negotiations for Phillips’ release had broken down.
Talks to free him began Thursday with the captain of the USS Bainbridge talking to the pirates under instruction from FBI hostage negotiators on board the U.S. destroyer. The pirates had threatened to kill Phillips if attacked.
Three U.S. warships were within easy reach of the lifeboat on Saturday. The U.S. Navy had assumed the pirates would try to get their hostage to shore, where they can hide him on Somalia’s lawless soil and be in a stronger position to negotiate a ransom.
Maersk Line said before news of the rescue broke that “the U.S. Navy had sight contact” of Phillips – apparently when the pirates opened the hatches.
Before Phillips was freed, a pirate who said he was associated with the gang that held Phillips, Ahmed Mohamed Nur, told The Associated Press that the pirates had reported that “helicopters continue to fly over their heads in the daylight and in the night they are under the focus of a spotlight from a warship.”
He spoke by satellite phone from Harardhere, a port and pirate stronghold where a fisherman said helicopters flew over the town Sunday morning and a warship was looming on the horizon. The fisherman, Abdi Sheikh Muse, said that could be an indication the lifeboat may be near to shore.
The district commissioner of the central Mudug region said talks went on all day Saturday, with clan elders from his area talking by satellite telephone and through a translator with Americans, but collapsed late Saturday night.
“The negotiations between the elders and American officials have broken down. The reason is American officials wanted to arrest the pirates in Puntland and elders refused the arrest of the pirates,” said the commissioner, Abdi Aziz Aw Yusuf. He said he organized initial contacts between the elders and the Americans.
Two other Somalis, one involved in the negotiations and another in contact with the pirates, also said the talks collapsed because of the U.S. insistence that the pirates be arrested and brought to justice.