The Captured Teen Somali Pirate Will Be Tried As An Adult In A NY Court!

There has been a lot of mystery surrounding the true age of captured Somali teen pirate,Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse.Well,prosecutors have decided that he will stand trial as an adult.Here's more on that from KMTR:

" A federal judge in New York has determined that the sole survivor of a pirate attack on an American cargo ship off the Somali coast is an adult.

On Tuesday, prosecutors and defense attorneys argued in a New York courtroom over whether Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse is a juvenile or an adult. Muse's age has been reported to be 15 or 18.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck closed the hearing for a time for fear that Muse is a juvenile. He later allowed reporters back in and told them he had decided Muse wasn't under 18.

Instead of handing him over to Kenyan authorities, the U.S. decided to bring Abduhl Wali-i-Muse to New York. He could face charges carrying a life sentence if convicted.

He smiled for photographers and reporters as federal agents led him into custody. He said nothing."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

Hey,he might be smiling because he came from a penniless family.At least he knows for sure where his next meal will be coming from.

But,some folks are wondering why he was brought to America instead of Kenya.There is a great piece in Time magazine that talks about why New York is the last place to bring Somali pirates to justice.It might make Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse a martyr in the eyes of some Somalians.

Here is an excerpt from the aforementioned article:

"The reason Abdulwali Muse will stand trial in New York's Southern District Court, we are told, is that the court has a lot of experience in trying those who have attacked U.S. targets abroad. The 19-year-old Somali is accused of being the ringleader of a group of pirates who seized the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama cargo ship in the waters off East Africa, before a dramatic U.S. military rescue operation. Unlike previous pirate suspects who have been handed over for trial in Kenya, Muse was brought to New York Monday night, and is expected to be arraigned in Manhattan soon.

But even if the young Somali broke the law and kidnapped Americans, putting him on trial in New York will do nothing to stamp out the piracy plaguing the Somali coastline. If anything, it will turn Muse into a martyr, prompting an escalation of violence on the high seas by his peers, rallying more Somalis to their cause (which is already pretty popular in the long-suffering nation) and jeopardizing U.S. national security interests in East Africa.

The competence of the Southern District Court is not in question. But the guiding principle in dealing with the Muse case ought to be enhancing the effort to stamp out piracy and stabilizing the failed state in which it has festered. From that perspective, bringing Muse to stand trial in New York is a terrible idea.

Somalia's pirates are not viewed as criminals by their own communities. They're a symptom of a unique set of local problems: the collapse of the Somali state and the absence of the rule of law and government authority, which leaves the country's territorial waters open to exploitation and abuse by foreigners; and also the absence of any prospect of making an honest living. Even if he is guilty as charged, Abdulwali Muse is not some pathological individual who has transgressed his community's norms.

There are hundreds of young men just like him all along the Somali coastline, calling themselves "coastguards" who protect Somali waters and "tax" foreign shipping to compensate for the fact that foreign fishing fleets, unmolested by any Somali state authority, annually plunder hundreds of millions of dollars of fish from Somali waters — and also for the fact that unscrupulous foreigners have used the coast to dump toxic waste.

None of this excuses piracy, of course, and many of the claims are spurious, since the prime beneficiaries of booty extracted by the pirates are land-based warlords, many of them associated with the now-deposed U.S.-backed government. Still, the plight of Somalia's coastline certainly helps explain why the phenomenon is so widespread — and why the pirates are viewed by many Somalis as folk heroes. Putting Muse on trial in New York won't change that; it will simply reinforce an already negative prevailing view of the United States."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

I Feel Sympathy For The Woman Who Has Been Mistaken For Accused Killer Melissa Huckaby

Poor Melissa Huckaby!And no,I'm not talking about the accused Sunday school teacher from Tracy,CA.The Melissa Huckaby I'm referring to is a Sunday school teacher from the very close by Manteca,CA.Isn't it kind of freakish that there are two Sunday school teachers from the San Joaquin area named Melissa Huckaby?

But,bearing the same name as an accused killer has been more than freaky for Melissa Huckaby.This is one case of mistaken identity that has folks freaking out on a woman who had nothing to do with Sandra Cantu's murder.And that's why this Melissa Huckaby has my sympathy!


Here's more on how the confusion began from SF Gate:

"Both are single moms, and both around the same age. One key difference is that the Melissa on the left, although publicly accused of the same crime as the Melissa on the right, is the victim of mistaken identity.

Herein lies a multi-layered problem in journalism, one that could have led to a rush to judgment. But the person writing this now has watched this metastasizing and malignant metamorphosis first hand and learned -- never rush to judgment in the rush to air.

Melissa Huckaby on the left was mistakenly identified as the suspect by a local Bay Area television station. An employee in a television newsroom got the name of the suspect and then, apparently, found a picture of a woman with the same name living close to where the killing took place. Proximity her only crime, the Melissa Huckaby on the left used the social networking site - MySpace. Her picture was found there, then put on the air.

The falsely identified woman's MySpace account is now closed, and she and her family no doubt wonder if or when they can walk Manteca streets safely again.

What the free and likely disillusioned Melissa Huckaby learned in this cruelest of ways is when journalists don't do their jobs well, lives get broken and innocents harmed. What she likely does not understand is how endemic this problem is in newsrooms across the country, where life altering mistakes happen every day - mistakes that often damage much more than reputations. Some "mistakes" have the power to bring democracy to its knees, leaving citizens without access to diligently checked, thoroughly vetted information from various sources - so they can decide for themselves what to believe."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

Iran Needs To Free Roxanna Saberi!

An Iranian-American journalist has been sentenced to 8 yrs in an Iranian prison.Roxanna Saberi was accused of being a spy,but President Obama has said that, "she is an Iranian American who was interested in the country which her family came from." Since I believe that is the case,I sincerely join the chorus of people that say:
"FREE ROXANNA SABERI"!

Here's more from mediabistro:

"Over the weekend American journalist Roxanna Saberi was sentenced, behind closed doors, to eight years in an Iranian prison. Saberi was rushed to trial last week under charges of espionage (she was initially arrested for working without credentials).

News of the arrest elicited an immediate response from a number of news organizations Saberi had worked for here, including NPR and ABC News (in full after the jump), while the White House initially used "cautious language" when addressing the situation. On Sunday President Obama followed up saying: "She is an American citizen, and I have complete confidence that she was not engaging in any sort of espionage," Obama said. "She is an Iranian American who was interested in the country which her family came from. And it is appropriate for her to be treated as such and to be released."

Also on Sunday Iranian president Ahmadinejad publicly stated that Sabieri should be allowed to fully defend herself on appeal.

Meanwhile, a Free Roxana twitter feed has been started, and is carrying all the latest updates."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.