He obviously,  hadn’t seen this news report.   Or, knowing his philosophy about Americans…. maybe he did.

By Karin Zeitvogel (AFP) – Mar 10, 2011

WASHINGTON — A federal grand jury has indicted 14 suspected pirates over the hijacking of a yacht last month that ended in the shooting deaths of four American hostages, officials said Thursday.

“Fourteen individuals — 13 Somalis and one from Yemen — have been indicted for their alleged roles in the pirate attack and the murder of four US citizens,” US Attorney Neil MacBride told AFP.

“The indictment tells the story of a horrific, heinous crime involving the armed hijacking of an American ship and the slaughter of American citizens, and the alleged pirates are now going to face justice in an American courtroom,” he said.

At least three of the defendants are accused of killing a retired US couple and two friends who were sailing the world on the 58-foot (17.5-meter) S/V Quest when it was commandeered off the coast of Somalia.

They were the first US citizens to die in a spate of high-seas kidnappings in recent years that has focused world attention on the pirate-infested waters off Somalia.

MacBride said the Americans had been “executed” by their captors as the US military, which had been tracking the hijacked boat, tried to negotiate with the pirates for the safe release of the hostages.

“Suddenly, without any provocation, the alleged pirates opened fire at the US navy ship and then executed the four hostages,” MacBride told AFP, citing details in the indictment dated Tuesday.

That version of events squared with what Vice Admiral Mark Fox, head of the US Naval Forces Central Command based in Bahrain, said shortly after the shootings, but jarred with what Somali pirates say happened.

Fox said two of the pirates had been brought on board a US warship for negotiations to free the hostages.

Most of the hundreds of hijackings that have occurred off the Somali coast over the past three years have been resolved through the payment of a ransom, albeit sometimes after protracted negotiations.

Then with “absolutely no warning,” Fox said, the pirates still on the Quest launched a rocket-propelled grenade at the warship, the USS Sterett.

US Special Forces raced to the yacht on small boats, but by the time they boarded, they heard gunfire and saw that all four Americans had been shot, Fox said.

But a senior Somali pirate commander based in Puntland, a region in northeastern Somalia that broke away from the lawless Horn of Africa country in 1998, told AFP the four Americans were caught in a cross-fire when US forces launched an assault on the Quest to try to rescue the hostages.

The 14 suspects indicted Thursday face life in prison if convicted of piracy or conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and could also be sentenced to another 30 years to life in prison if found guilty on a firearms charge. All the sentences would be served consecutively.

The case is the latest of several that have brought Somali pirates to the United States for trial, but was the first in which Americans were shot and killed, said MacBride.

Five Somali men were convicted in November by a court in Virginia on charges of piracy, the first such conviction in the United States in nearly 200 years.

They were also convicted of attacking to plunder a maritime vessel and assault with a dangerous weapon for their roles in an attack in April on the USS Nichols, which was deployed to combat piracy in waters off the eastern coast of Africa.

A sixth pirate was sentenced to 30 years in prison, and another five are awaiting trial in Virginia, said MacBride.

Last month, a judge in New York sentenced a teenage Somali to nearly 34 years in prison for his part in the 2009 hijacking of US cargo ship the Maersk Alabama.

“But in none of those cases were there allegations that any hostages were killed, simply ships that were fired on and an effort made to seize the ship,” said MacBride. He said additional charges could be brought against the 14.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hARYTxvdGfQtlXPYezM4OnXSBXUA?docId=CNG.b10f77bcf3bb312a68aa8c85b50004d3.461

(via yenialblastoff)