Down with the Ship: The Prosecution of Piratical Acts in United States v. Ali

INTRODUCTIONThough the international seafaring community has been plagued by acts of piracy on the high seas for centuries, the frequency of piratical acts has increased dramatically in the last few decades.1 One such act involved the ransom of crewmembers on the Danish merchant ship CEC Future by a band of Somali pirates whose interpreter and negotiator, Ali Mohamed Ali, was later arrested in the United States.2 Ali was charged with conspiracy to commit piracy on the high seas, aiding and abetting piracy on the high seas, conspiracy to commit hostage taking, and aiding and abetting hostage taking.3 In United States v. Ali, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the decision of the District Court in part and reversed in part, holding that the charge of conspiracy to commit piracy was properly dismissed, but that the remaining three charges were legally sufficient and should not have been limited or dismissed.4Part I of this Comment provides a brief background of piracy in the Horn of Africa, as well as the factual and procedural history of United States v. Ali. Part II provides a discussion of the reasoning utilized by the court to determine which of the government's allegations were legally sufficient. Part II also explores the court's holding regarding the proper dismissal of the charge of conspiracy to commit piracy and the due process arguments employed by Ali and accepted by the lower court. Part III argues that the court correctly dismissed the charge of conspiracy to commit piracy, but that the future effect of the decision in the United States is unknown due to national and international efforts to curb Somali piracy through alternative means.I. BackgroundA.Piracy in East AfricaPiracy off the Somali coast has come to public attention in recent years following the well-known pirate attack on the Maersk Alabama-the inspiration for and true story behind the 2013 film Captain Phillips-which featured a five-day standoff between U.S. Navy SEALs and a gang of Somali pirates who had captured the 17,000-ton cargo ship off the Horn of Africa.5 The frequency of acts of piracy such as this has grown most dramatically off the coast of East Africa, where there were 222 incidents in 2009 alone-a sharp increase from the 134 attacks in 2008 and 60 in 2007.6 These types of attacks are particularly lucrative in the Gulf of Aden, a natural sea link between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, situated between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, and bounded by the Somali coast to the South and the Yemeni coast to the North.7 Pirates have increasingly exploited the high maritime traffic in the area, as well as the lack of deterrence from a weak Somali government, by hijacking large commercial ships and ransoming the crews for exorbitant sums of money.8B.Attack on the CEC FutureMere months before the famous capture and subsequent rescue of Captain Phillips, the Danish merchant ship CEC Future was overtaken on the high seas as it traveled through the Gulf of Aden carrying cargo owned by a U.S. corporation.9 On November 7, 2008, a band of Somali pirates boarded the CEC Future armed with AK-47s and a rocket-propelled grenade, seized the crew, and rerouted the ship toward Eyl, an infamous Somali pirate port.10 Two days later, on November 9, interpreter and negotiator Ali Mohamed Ali boarded the ship off the coast of Somalia at Point Raas Binna.11 With the exception of a matter of minutes, the ship traversed only territorial waters while Ali was on board.12Upon boarding the ship, Ali immediately began negotiations with Clipper Group, the Danish shipping firm which owned the CEC Future .13 He conversed initially with "Steven," a hired middleman, before communicating directly with Clipper Group CEO Per Gullestrup.14 Negotiations continued until January 2009, when Ali and the owners of the CECFuture agreed to a $1.7 million ransom.15 The ransom was paid in full on January 14, 2009, delivered by parachute drop onto the deck of the ship in an orange, watertight container. …