NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A Somali man federal prosecutors say was the chief negotiator for a group of pirates who took four Americans hostage and later killed them has been indicted on piracy and kidnapping charges.
Mohammad Saaili Shibin was scheduled to make a court appearance Wednesday in Norfolk. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says he’s the first suspected pirate the U.S. has apprehended in Somalia. He arrived in the U.S. on Friday.
Thirteen Somalis and a man from Yemen pleaded not guilty last month to piracy, kidnapping and firearms charges related to the same hijacking.
The owners of the Quest, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif., along with friends Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle, were shot to death after they were taken hostage several hundred miles south of Oman.
