Abduwali Muse
Abdulwali Abdukhad Muse is a Somali pirate. He is the sole survivor of four pirates who hijacked the in April 2009 and then held Captain Richard Phillips for ransom. On 16 February 2011, Muse was convicted and sentenced to 33 years and 9 months in U.S. federal prison.
Muse was portrayed by Somali-American actor Barkhad Abdi in the 2013 film Captain Phillips, a dramatization of the hijacking.
Early life
Muse was born as the eldest of twelve children in a village north of Galkayo, a divided city. He is part of the Omar Mohamoud Majeerteen clan. Muse's parents were herders, keeping camels, cows, and goats, and selling their milk for a living. He grew up in poverty often without food or clothes. At a young age, he was kicked in the face by a camel and lost two of his front teeth. Muse began living alone at age 11 or 12 and initially worked as an assistant to taxi drivers, sustaining severe injuries during this time after being trampled by cows. At age 13, he moved to Garacad, where he worked as a cook for fishermen. He was married in 2008 but could not afford to establish a home for himself and his wife.Attack on ''Maersk Alabama''
According to his indictment, Muse was the first of the four men who boarded Maersk Alabama. During the attack, the pirates searched the ship to account for all the crew. While one pirate took the ship's captain Richard Phillips to a different part of the vessel, Muse and his remaining compatriots lost sight of third mate Collin Wright. The two other pirates opened fire on two crew members they found, but Muse ordered them to stop, after which one of the men, sailor Zahid Reza, volunteered to look for the rest of the crew, appealing to their shared religious beliefs. Below deck, Muse was attacked by chief engineer Mike Pirrey, allowing Reza to stab Muse in the hand. The crew held Muse hostage for five hours, with Muse telling Reza that the pirates sought a $3,000,000 ransom. Ultimately, Richard Phillips offered Muse and the other pirates $30,000 to leave Maersk Alabama safely on the ship's lifeboat. However, Muse's fellow pirates forced Phillips into the lifeboat before Maersk Alabamas crew could release Muse. All four pirates escaped the ship, with Phillips held hostage inside the lifeboat. A day later USS Bainbridge intercepted the lifeboat; Navy officers negotiated with the armed pirates for hours and agreed to take Muse on board Bainbridge to "meet" with elders from his clan to negotiate the release of Phillips. After Muse had been taken on board, the three remaining pirates were shot dead simultaneously by Navy SEAL sharpshooters. Muse was charged and taken into American custody. Muse was thought to be the first person to be charged with piracy in an American court in more than 100 years, when courts ruled in 1885 that Ambrose Light was not a pirate vessel. A more recent case, 2008's United States v. Shi, which was quoted in his indictment, involves murder and a crew member taking over a ship and holding a hostage.Additional attacks
In 2010, Muse was charged in connection with two additional attacks on international shipping. The indictment does not name the two vessels involved, hijacked in March and April 2009. However, they are likely to include the 700-ton fishing vessel Win Far 161, which was used as a mother ship in other attacks, including the Maersk Alabama hijacking. Two of the Win Far 161's crew, one sailor from mainland China and the other from Indonesia, died of illness.Trial
Muse was tried in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in New York City.There was some confusion as to his age. According to the New York Daily News, he was at the time 17 to 19 years old. No birth record of Muse exists as his mother gave birth at home through a midwife. Muse was to stand trial in New York because of the local FBI office's expertise in handling cases where major crimes were perpetrated against Americans in Africa, such as the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. CBC News also reported that U.S. authorities had considered transferring him to authorities in Kenya per international agreement to prosecute pirate suspects.
When initially captured, U.S. officials reported Muse as being 16 to 20 years old, and that his name was Abduhl Wali-i-Musi. U.S. secretary of defense Robert Gates asserted that all four pirate suspects were between the ages of 17 and 19. On 20 April 2009, CBC News reported that U.S. officials indicated that investigators had confirmed Muse was over 18, which removed additional steps that would be required to prosecute him had it been determined that he was a minor.
Muse's mother, Adar Abdurahman Hassan, stated in a telephone interview with the Associated Press that U.S. authorities had both his name and age wrong. She indicated that Muse was 16 years old, named him as Abdi Wali Abdulqadir Muse, and stated that he had gone missing after heading for school 15 days before the hijacking. Muse's father, Abdiqadir Muse, gave his son's birthdate as 20 November 1993, which would have made him 15 at the time of the hijacking. According to court testimony by NYPD detective Frederick Galloway, Muse admitted that he was "between 18 and 19" during questioning. In an interview with the BBC Somali service, Muse's mother also appealed to the U.S. government and president to free her son, asserting that Muse had been lured into pirate activity by "gangsters with money". She claimed that he had only been involved in piracy for 15days, while the U.S. judiciary determined that Muse had led piracy activities for five weeks before targeting the Maersk Alabama.
In a court ruling on 21 April 2009, U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck decided Muse was not under 18 and that he could be tried as an adult. Muse was then brought to New York to face trial on charges including piracy under the law of nations, conspiracy to seize a ship by force, conspiracy to commit hostage-taking, and firearms related charges, carrying a potential of up to four life sentences. The charge of piracy has a mandatory life sentence, and there is no parole in U.S. federal prisons.
On 19 May 2009, a federal grand jury in New York returned a ten-count indictment against Muse.
Muse pleaded guilty to the hijacking, kidnapping and hostage-taking charges on 18 May 2010. Charges of piracy, punishable by a mandatory life sentence, and possession of a machine gun were dropped in exchange for the guilty plea for a sentence between 27 and 33 years.
On 16 February 2011, Muse was sentenced to 33 years and 9 months in federal prison.
Imprisonment
Muse was initially incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution, Terre Haute, in the Communications Management Unit. He was temporarily moved to the Federal Correctional Institution, Edgefield before being transferred back to Terre Haute. As of December 2025, Muse is incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland. His projected release date is 30 May 2038.Muse worked as a prison orderly, although his wage was garnished to pay the restitution he owes for the hijacking as well as a court fee. He said he spent his free time in prison watching TV, reading and writing. In 2016, he acquired a GED. While in Terre Haute he received his first English lesson from Mufid Abdulqader who had been sentenced to 20 years in prison after the Holy Land Foundation trial. He spent some time in solitary confinement for being "disruptive". In 2017, Muse filed a lawsuit against three staff members of the Terre Haute facility, holding them responsible for the loss of 15 teeth, seven of which were extracted in 2011, through "deliberate indifference".