NORFOLK, Va. — A federal judge sentenced a Yemeni fisherman on Friday to life in prison for his role in a yacht hijacking in the Indian Ocean that resulted in the slayings of four Americans.
Mounir Ali, 23, was the seventh of the 11 defendants who pleaded guilty in the case to be sentenced,
the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Ali was one of 15 men charged in the February hijacking of the Quest off the African coast. Several Somalis fatally shot the yacht’s owners, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif., and their friends Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay, of Seattle, several days after taking them hostage several hundred miles south of Oman.
Four U.S. warships were shadowing the Quest and negotiations were under way when the pirates fired shots aboard the vessel, killing the four, who were the first U.S. citizens killed in a wave of attacks plaguing the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean in recent years.
In November 2010, Ali and a group of Yemenis were fishing in several boats near the island of Socotra in the Gulf of Aden when a group of Somalis took them hostage. Ali agreed to join the pirates in the capture of the Quest with the promise of getting a share of the ransom and the return of his fishing boats.
Of the 19 men who originally boarded the Quest, Ali and 10 Somalis pleaded guilty, four were killed, three are facing murder charges and one was released because he was a juvenile. Another man who served as a land-based negotiator also faces piracy charges in the case.
In his apology Friday, Ali said he participated in the attack only to get his own boats returned. He said if he had known there would be violence he never would have participated, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
“I’m very sorry, very, very sorry,” Ali said.
The 10 others who pleaded guilty each said in court documents that Ali willingly decided to join them for a share of ransom profits.
“Despite being a victim of piracy himself, Mr. Ali voluntarily joined his captors to attack and hold four Americans hostage for ransom,” U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said in a statement. “That selfish act resulted in the death of four Americans.”
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