A Somali man who pleaded guilty to piracy has been sentenced in the US to more than 33 years in prison.
Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse is the only survivor of the crew of pirates who attacked the Maersk Alabama merchant ship off Somalia’s coast in April 2009.
He was captured by the US Navy, whose sharpshooters killed three other pirates trying to escape on a lifeboat with the Alabama’s American captain.
Muse told the court he was “very sorry for what I did”.
“I got my hands into something that was more powerful than me,” Muse said through a translator.
Muse’s lawyers had sought the 27-year minimum sentence.
‘Relishing cruelty’
In federal court in New York, prosecutors had portrayed Muse as a ringleader of the pirate gang who seized the Maersk Alabama some 450km (280 miles) off the coast of Somalia.
US District Judge Loretta Preska described the pirates as sadists, noting they had subjected Capt Richard Phillips to a mock execution.
“They appeared to relish even their most depraved acts of physical and psychological violence,” she said.
Before she announced the sentence, Maersk Alabama crew member Colin Wright told the court he was “not the same person I used to be and I never will be”.
Prosecutors said Muse was the first to board the Maersk Alabama, firing his AK-47 assault rifle at Capt Phillips.
Muse pleaded guilty in May to what were said to be the first piracy charges to have been brought in the US in more than a century.
The Maersk Alabama, which was carrying food aid, was seized by the four pirates in April 2009.
