WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A US court has sentenced two Somali pirates to 30 years each in prison for taking an American Journalist hostage
Abdi Yusef Hassan, 56, of Minneapolis, and Mohamed Tahlil Mohamed, 43, of Somalian capital Mogadishu, were convicted by a jury in the Eastern District of New York in February 2023 following a three-week trial.
Michael Scott Moore, an American freelance journalist, was abducted by pirates while he was in Galkayo, the third-largest city in Somalia, to research piracy and the Somali economy in January 2012.
Moore was held in various locations in the port city of Hobyo along with with two Seychellois fishermen for approximately three months.
During his 977-day captivity, the pirates shuttled him between safehouses, chained him at night to prevent his escape, surrounded him with armed guards, and repeatedly threatened him with bodily harm, the Justice Department said in a press release.
Moore's captors released him in September 2014 after paying $1.6 million as ransom.
Hassan and Mohamed played significant roles in Moore's captivity, according to a press release by the the Justice Department. Hassan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, served as the Minister of the Interior in Galmudug province in Somalia, where Moore was held hostage. Hassan served as an overall leader of the pirates and headed their efforts to extort a massive ransom from Moore's aging mother.
Mohamed, a Somali army officer, was a supervisor of the pirates guarding Moore, and served as the pirates' head of security and armorer.
The FBI Boston and Minneapolis Field Office investigated the case with assistance from Department of State Diplomatic Security Service.
Moore, who is also a novelist, has written a memoir about his captivity in Somalia, titled, 'The Desert and the Sea'.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of Hostage US, a non-profit that supports American hostages and their families.
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