[Fox9] A Somali pirate from Minneapolis has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in holding an American journalist hostage.
A Somali pirate from Minnesota has been sentenced to federal prison for his role in holding an American journalist hostage for nearly three years.
WHAT WE KNOW
In a blurb on Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said Abdi Yusuf Hassan, of Minneapolis, and Mohammed Tahlil Mohammed, of Somalia, received a 30-year prison sentence for hostage taking, terrorism and firearm offenses related to the 977-day captivity of American freelance journalist Michael Scott Moore.
Mr. Moore is a German journalist with dual American citizenship who went to Somali to research a book on piracy. No doubt by the time his ransom was paid he knew a great deal more on the subject than he’d intended. Officials said Hassan and Mohammed played "significant roles in Moore’s captivity" and abused their positions within the Somali government. Hassan served as the Minister of Interior Galmudug
...a semiautonomous region in central Somalia, bordering Puntland on the north. Galmudug is not trying to obtain international recognition as a separate nation, but rather considers itself autonomous within the larger Somali federalism, for what that's worth...
providence in Somalia, where he was responsible for police and security forces.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, Butch clutched at his other shoulder......
Mohammed was a serving officer in the Somali army.
WHAT HAPPENED?
In January 2012, Moore was taken from his vehicle while traveling in Somalia to research piracy and the economy. Officials say Moore was held in various locations during his time in captivity, including a hijacked ship with 28 other crew members from Vietnam, China, the Philippines, and Taiwan. His captors would move him between safehouses, keep him under armed guard, and chain him at night to prevent escape.
The captors made several proof-of-life videos requesting large ransom payments, and Moore was eventually released in September 2014 after it was paid, according to the DOJ.
The blurb says Hassan was directly involved in the ransom negotiations and directed the production of the videos. He also "served as an overall leader of the pirates" and used his home as a base of operations.
In February 2023, Hassan and Mohammed underwent a three-week trial, and a federal jury found them guilty.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
"For nearly three years, Michael Scott Moore was held hostage in Somalia by pirates. He was beaten, chained to the floor, and threatened with assault rifles and machine guns. Hassan and Mohammed were key players in that hostage-taking. Both abused their positions in Somalia’s government—Hassan, as a security bigshot, and Mohammed as an army officer—by keeping a U.S. citizen captive to satisfy their own greed. Today’s sentences demonstrate our resolve to hold those who take Americans hostage accountable for their crimes," said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.
Mohamed, 43, is from Mogadishu, Somalia. Hassan, 56, is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Minneapolis, Minn., who served as Somalia’s Minister of the Interior. They kept Moore for 977 days. In addition to a prison term, both were sentenced to one day of supervised release.
According to the Justice Department, Hassan and Mohamed were “key players” who played “significant roles” in the hostage-taking.
Hassan, a senior government official and Mohamed, an ex-Army officer, kept Moore in order to “satisfy their own greed,” says Williams.o
The U.S. government contends Hassan’s government role as Interior Minister made him responsible for police and security forces in Somalia’s Galmudug province where Moore was allegedly being held in captivity.
Moore, then a 45-year-old U.S.-German dual citizen was kidnapped by an unspecified armed group in January 2012 while conducting research on piracy for a book on a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.
He is the author of Sweetness and Blood, a 2010 about the history of surfing, and The Desert and the Sea, his 2018 memoir about his captivity in Somalia.
He was driving in the Galkayo vicinity when his vehicle was “suddenly surrounded by a group of heavily armed men carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers,” officials say.
Hassan, the federal government claimed, served as “overall leader” of the group of Somali pirates to extort ransom money from Moore’s elderly mother. He also directed production of “proof-of-life” videos that Moore was forced to take part in to prove he was still alive.
Moore reportedly got pulled from his vehicle, beaten with weapons, and drove away in another vehicle to a secluded area where he was held with two Seychellois fishermen abducted in October 2011 off the Somali coast.
Meanwhile, Mohamed was a Somali Army officer and a supervisor of the group of pirates holding Moore who moved their hostage multiple times around the plagued nation on the East African continent. He was held in various locations in the vicinity of Hobyo, Somalia for roughly three months
He was held along with 26 Asian sailors later freed and returned home to their native Vietnam, Taiwan, Cambodia, Indonesia, China and the Philippines.
Moore was forced to witness things such as torture and had been under constant threat of bodily injury. The kidnappers provided Moore with next to no information. His only access to the outside world was limited to just a radio.
But in court proceedings, Moore reportedly requested the court be lenient when in Mohamed’s sentencing. “‘Gentle” was a word Moore supposedly used to descrilbe Mohamed, according to Mohamed’s lawyer.
“Mr. Moore confirmed that Mr. Mohamed was kind to him throughout his ordeal,” Susan Kellman, an attorney for Mohamed, told The Hill in an email.
Following a ransom payment, Moore’s Somali captors did release him in September 2014. The effort to obtain Williams’ release was an interagency government effort between the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and its various branches.
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