Three men jumped from a command boat into an open skiff and raced toward the target. They opened fire with AK-47 rifles as they neared the starboard side, hitting a mast and several life lines.
No one was hurt, and the April 1 incident normally might have drawn little notice. Somali sea bandits have attacked several hundred freighters, tankers and other merchant ships this year. They have successfully hijacked 40 vessels and their crews and held them for ransom.
But the target this time was the U.S. guided missile frigate Nicholas, disguised to resemble a cargo ship. Navy gunners fired back, and by dawn, commandos had captured five Somalis.
The last known U.S. trial of a pirate captured overseas was in 1819. During the Civil War, crew members from the Savannah, a Confederate raider, were charged with piracy and tried in New York. But the jury deadlocked, and the rebels later were deemed prisoners of war.
There is actually two historic events here. The first would be the trial itself, but the second would be the first use of ‘Q-ships‘ by the US Navy since World War 2. This last part is incredibly under reported, and hopefully some clarification can be made by the US Navy about this if it is true.
Or maybe there was a mistake by the reporter below, or this is what the defense claimed in the trial? Who knows, but it certainly is interesting if true. It almost makes me wonder if the USS Ashland was set up to be a decoy as well, because Somali pirates fired on that vessel thinking it was a merchant vessel. –Matt
US jury finds Somalis guilty of piracy
November 25, 2010
WASHINGTON — Five Somalis were found guilty of piracy for attacking a US vessel in the Indian Ocean, the first US convictions on such charges in nearly two centuries, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.
A jury in the port city of Norfolk, Virginia found the men guilty of the April attack on the navy frigate USS Nicholas — which they mistook for a merchant vessel — from a small skiff in April.
The ruling marks “what is believed to be the first piracy trial conviction in the United States since 1820,” the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
According to trial testimony, the men sailed from Somalia searching for a merchant ship to raid. “They used a larger ship full of supplies, along with two smaller vessels loaded with assault weapons and a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) that served as attack boats,” the statement read.
On April 1, three of the suspects boarded one of the smaller vessels “and set out to pirate what they believed to be a merchant ship.”
The men opened fire on a ship which turned out to be the Norfolk-based USS Nicholas.