r/todayilearned • u/impulse07 • 1d ago
TIL real Somali pirate from Captain Phillips is sentenced to 33 years in US prison
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-12486129•
u/Asha_Brea 1d ago
Look at him, he is the inmate now.
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u/mopeywhiteguy 1d ago
He is the captive now
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u/Lord_Silverkey 1d ago
I was going to say convict.
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u/energyinmotion 1d ago
No that's Akon
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1d ago
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u/ChrundleThundergun 13h ago
Oh my god I JUST realized he says this because his name is a kon…. I always thought it was convict with a k because it’s cooler than a c. I’m so dense sometimes.
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u/john_the_quain 1d ago
Not sure how the judge and every guard didn’t do the “look at me..” thing. Maybe more mature than me.
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u/RomeliaHatfield 1d ago
The resemblance between the pirate and the guy who played him is actually uncanny.
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u/staydrippy 1d ago
It’s the same actor, I don’t know if it’s supposed to be the same guy
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u/Lizardon_GX 1d ago
I don’t think she should have yelled at Eddie Munster
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u/legal_stylist 1d ago
He actually didn’t yell at Eddie Munster; I’ve watched it a ton of times
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u/Maximum_Trade5916 1d ago
Barkhad Abdi is the actor. He is from Minneapolis and graduated from Minnesota State.
Abduwali Muse is the lone surviving Somali Pirate who hijacked the Maersk Alabama
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u/GordonMightyBombay 1d ago
He’s actually buying computers for people in his country and soliciting funds through Reddit. But he’s doing a great job. I think he post in mademesmile
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u/JiveChicken00 1d ago
Compared with some parts of Somalia back then, U.S. federal prison was like Club Med.
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u/pichael289 1d ago
Oh you have no idea, sure if it's a supermax type joint it's bad but the lower level prisons can be kinda sweet. Especially if you go to a private prison and have some money. Low level honnor camp type places, might be called a rehab or some sort of semi lockdown halfway house. Those are easy and smooth but have some issues.
County jail is like elementary school, breakfast time then quiet time for an hour, few hours rec the lunch, then a few hours quiet time before dinner and then lockdown at like 10. The COs are jail COs, not prison COs, so they are usually insecure and aggressive, knowing your not gonna wild our before sentencing so they run their mouths constantly. Shit sucks.
Going to actual prison is so much better. If you got a low threat score and really any crime In Ohio you'll likely get sent to some fraudulent tablet house rehab, a few of them take convicted pedophiles since most low security joints do. Sex offenders are vulnerable and most of the time have the best accomodations. Where I'm from I was careful, never left any way to catch me. Untill my house is on fire and I left the drugs I had a problem with sitting out. 5 months waiting in jail to go to CCC/turtle creek in ohio, 1 point on my threat level because I got caught with a packet of jelly in Warren county jail, otherwise as low as possible. So that got me in with the sex offenders, not a single one spent a whole day in jail. Slept between a guy who didn't pay child support, heroin residue for me, tied up and raped his little sister for years.
You would honestly be shocked at how easy some of the more henious criminals have it in prison. Y'all know the evil white collar criminals but not shit like this. Sex offenders always have it the best as they are put with non violent (no matter how violent their crime) inmates to ensure they aren't just killed by a longtimer. I was free in 6 months, not worth throwing away to make myself feel better with how shitty I am which is the primary reason SOs get targeted.
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u/airfryerfuntime 20h ago
State prison is usually absolutely fucking awful in every way. It's where all those prison stereotypes come from, and they're based on reality. Federal prison is usually better because it's a lot more strict, they're cleaner, and they're not being run for profit.
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u/MandolinMagi 9h ago
Most state prisons aren't run for profit either (or aren't private, unsure what you ment)
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u/JiveChicken00 1d ago
I do have some idea. A relative of mine spent time in federal prison for something relatively benign, and he came back looking like he’d been on vacation :)
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u/SL1Fun 1d ago
He’s in ultra-max.
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u/Dry_Jellyfish641 1d ago
No he is at Terra Haute which is a medium in Indiana. He is living a normal life unbothered.
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u/JaySayMayday 1d ago
He has to use a translator for basic questions and answers. Homeboy is living a life of solitude there with nobody to understand him and nobody he can understand.
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u/Icyrow 1d ago
right but he'll be there for 33 years. in all likelihood knows more english than he lets on and within 2-5 years will be conversational/close to fluent.
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u/Dry_Jellyfish641 1d ago edited 1d ago
Absolutely not true. Federal prisons operate on racial politics. His charge is considered a “clean” one, therefore he is accepted into either the black car or the Muslim car (if there enough Muslims there and even then they are affiliated with the black car). There are a lot of Somalis in federal prisons, mainly for scamming. Even if he spoke zero English he would learn through immersion. Remember, if he was able to communicate with the captain and crew in crude English then he had a basic understanding of it.
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u/Plugpin 1d ago
Plus, I'd have thought basic English lessons would be available, if not mandatory.
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u/Dry_Jellyfish641 1d ago
Actually, yes. Every BOP facility is suppose to offer Adult Education to test for a GED.
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u/boodabomb 1d ago
There is no “ultra-max.” There is one Super-max prison in America and he’s not in it.
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u/JiveChicken00 1d ago
And still.
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u/KyZei15 1d ago
I mean I would personally rather live a year "free" in almost any other country before spending 2 weeks in a federal prison.
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u/JiveChicken00 1d ago
You’ve obviously never been to some of the nicer federal prisons, or some of the less nice countries :)
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u/jewkakasaurus 1d ago
Federal prisons can be amazing as far as prison goes and include things like horseback riding and shop class etc
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u/Dry_Jellyfish641 1d ago
No, that’s movie shit. Some women’s prisons had tennis courts back in the 70s. There is no horseback riding, and yes you can work in a factory via UniCor but there are no shop classes. There are trade classes and some Rec departments may offer basic courses in something like leather craft or ceramics, there is no “shop class”. For something like that you’d work in carpentry and fuck around on your own. The idea of Club Fed is exaggerated, it is still prison, even though at some camps you may have jobs that have you driving on your own into town. That is minimum security though and those are privileged jobs.
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u/247stonerbro 1d ago
"Some poor kid just committed their first robbery and is stunned there's no friggin horse back riding in prison! "My mind would explode at such a headline lmfao
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u/Dry_Jellyfish641 1d ago
You’d never get into a camp with a violent charge. It would have to be white collar, a drug or something like an FAA violation. No sex offenders, violent criminals or undocumented persons are allowed in minimum security. That’s why it’s so appalling Maxwell is at one, it literally violates BOP policy. There are old men who rob banks using a note to go to federal prison because they have no retirement plan or healthcare. It’s a messed up world
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u/ic33 1d ago
but there are no shop classes.
https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/docs/inmate_occupational_training_directory.pdf
I am not sure I understand the distinction you're drawing with trade classes. There are absolutely carpentry classes and cabinet making classes where students spend a fair bit of time working on their own projects.
When I took shop class outside of prison I couldn't do exactly what I wanted, either.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
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u/thissexypoptart 1d ago edited 1d ago
All of US federal prison isn’t called “club fed” lmao
“Club fed” refers to (some) minimum security prisons run by the government. Guantanamo is also a federally run prison.
Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse is serving his sentence at a medium security federal prison (FCI Cumberland)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Correctional_Institution,_Cumberland
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u/kstargate-425 1d ago
Club Fed is the minimum security section reserved for white collar criminals and non-violent offenders. Its where Trumps personal attorney sent Ghislaine Maxwell against all rules and regulations since she is a violent child rapist and wouldn't be allowed there besides all the perks she got for not testifying before Congress, like internet and phone access as a convicted pedophile and even a support puppy visits.
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u/creeper321448 1d ago
Commercial sailor here:
Fuck Philips too and the crew of that ship hate that he was made to be sympathetic in the movie, same with the pirates. Reality is, Philips chose to go down a route known to be dangerous, and he could have avoided it entirely.
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u/Mudbutt7 1d ago
Can confirm. Father in law is a retired merchant marine. He said Phillips is a fucking moron who chose to put them in that situation by going against all Intel and common sense. Even overriding the ships navigator who was attempting to plot a safer course.
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u/ringo5150 1d ago
Why? For what benefit?
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u/creeper321448 1d ago
Shave a few days off the course. You wouldn't know unless you've been, but the maritime world is just filled with some major pieces of shit. Watch Lake Boat, it's free on YouTube and is the perfect display of the types of people on deep sea ships.
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u/UpsetKoalaBear 21h ago
Brick Immortar on YouTube also has some good videos on the hubris of some captains.
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u/Convergentshave 1d ago
Let’s be honesty probably the shipping company told him too. Like year I’m sure some multibillion, international shipping company was like “hey we’re going to leave it up to you. Our investors are totally cool with you deciding which shipping lane to take and don’t mind if you spend a few extra days making sure the crew gets there safely”
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u/yeahalrightgoon 1d ago
I'd argue that Maersk are a big enough company that they would have been fine with a few extra days, considering it wasn't just a "hey this could be dangerous", more a "hey over a dozen ships have been attacked in the last three weeks alone sailing too close to the coast".
If it was a smaller company, then it's more likely they would be wanting him to take the risk. But considering that Maersk is the second largest cargo fleet in the world, and that was the only piracy attack on one of their vessels, despite there being dozens of attacks in the years leading up to it and after. It's more likely that he just ignored the warnings on his own volition, rather than anything he was told.
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u/xixbia 21h ago
There is no chance the shipping company explicitly told him to ignore NATO and US Maritime Administration advisories to stay at least 600 nautical miles away.
They might have pushed him to be as quick as possible, but it was 100% his decision to get that close to the coast and nobody would have blamed him if he followed the safety advice.
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u/xenuman 1d ago
Sounds like your dad is just jelly he doesn't have a movie named after him
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u/xixbia 22h ago
Yup, he argues that Somali pirates went out all the way out (as the image in the article shows). But the likelihood of an attack would have been far lower if he didn't sail so close to Somalia.
Especially since this wasn't a large scale attack, this was 4 pirates in an old fishing boat. It's very unlikely they would have gone even 600 miles out. This was very much a crime of opportunity which only happened because Philips brought them in that close.
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u/blueponies1 9h ago
If that ship didn’t have such a short skirt on it wouldnt have been so enticing to those pirates
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u/wheelienonstop12 23h ago
I used to be on a motorcycle adventure riding forum (advrider.com) and one of the other members actually was a crewman/sailor on a ship with Philips as a captain and he had a very poor opinion of him too. Said Philips nearly got him and another crewman killed once because he made them go out and do some completely unnecessary shit on the ship's forecastle in a major storm.
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u/Smartnership 20h ago
Philips chose to go down a route known to be dangerous
Besides, what was he wearing?
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u/jmr098 1d ago
Why fuck the crew? Did they have input in the route?
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u/MonaganX 22h ago
I don't think the crew is meant to be included in the "fuck" but rather they hate that Phillips was made to be sympathetic. That sentence is just in desperate need of some punctuation.
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u/ManWithThePlanLads 22h ago
So you are blaming them for being kidnapped by murdering criminals? lol
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u/johnbrowndnw59 16h ago
Worth pointing out that the pirates had a shitload of cash from the Alabama on the lifeboat with them the whole time and it was never recovered, the only possible explanation for its disappearance being that it was stolen by the navy seals
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u/kingtacticool 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yup, serving his time in the ultramax in Colorado. Same place as El Chapo.
I am incorrect. He never served time at ADX Florence, my bad
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u/Gemmabeta 1d ago
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.
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u/kingtacticool 1d ago
Huh. I coulda sworn I heard he was at the big bad fed. Maybe he got moved to a lower security.
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u/PerpelSho 1d ago
Jesus. Imagine getting in trouble and all of a sudden your entire life is on Wikipedia.
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u/DaveOJ12 1d ago
LPT: Don't get in trouble.
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u/PerpelSho 1d ago
Lol. Even if I did no one is about to write out a wiki about it.
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u/eightkillerbits 1d ago
Garnishing prison wages seems pointlessly petty.
Don't they get paid like 20c an hour.
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1d ago
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u/Tthelaundryman 1d ago
Dynamax!
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u/Strofari 1d ago
That’s the automotive sound deadening stuff right?
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u/Gandalfthefab 1d ago
What kinda Arkham Asylum type shit is going on in that prison?
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u/kingtacticool 1d ago edited 1d ago
ADX Florece is no joke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence
Current inmates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_inmates_at_ADX_Florence
The Shoe Bomber, Mousawi and the Boston bomber are all there.
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u/NotReallyJohnDoe 1d ago
And a non-name guy who spent 40 years in solitary confinement with minimal human contact. Unreal.
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u/Convergentshave 1d ago
Terrible Tommy Silverstein is whom you’re thinking ok. He’s dead now but he’s 40 years no contact not even from the guards
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u/recoveringleft 1d ago
Do you think Nicolas Maduro and mangione will end up there?
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u/Mist_Rising 1d ago
No to the last one, he isn't charged with a crime eligible for supermax. His current deal is for stalking.
Maduro is unclear, Trump's charges are bogus bullshit.
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u/rabbitlion 5 1d ago
Maduro will most likely be judged not guilty. And even if convicted, he would not considered dangerous enough for supermax.
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u/ours 1d ago
And someone who was there explains ADX Florence: https://youtu.be/iMlvLm1yJek?si=qAfTJwR9GK_a5Tl8
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u/asdf_lord 1d ago
The US government will torture him good for what he did to Tom Hanks character.
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u/BrokenEyeReborn 1d ago
That's even more confusing than when Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno but was imprisoned in California
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u/MiNdOverLOADED23 1d ago
Is his life better now than what it was in somolia?
Id imagine the healthcare is much better and probably even the food
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u/sandefurd 1d ago
If your measure is exclusively being fed and medically sound, then probably. But freedom is worth a hell of a lot
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u/Hanz_VonManstrom 1d ago
Supermax prisons aren’t great. You’re basically in solitary confinement for the majority of the day.
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u/username_elephant 1d ago
Conversely: he is not free. He cannot see whatever friends/family he had for decades.
I don't love these kind of statements. Yeah, shit sucks in Somalia. But the idea that Somalians would be better off in American prisons is some colonial-ass thinking. Reminds me of the myth of the happy slave, almost.
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u/Lanky_Giraffe 1d ago
A decent number of people seem to think that any existence at all in a western country is always better than any normal existence in any non-western country, and that the ultimate dream of non-Westerners is to get to the West. It's deeply racist.
You see this all the time with refugee policies. For example, during the European migrant crisis in the 2010s, experts repeatedly pointed out that setting up asylum processing centres at the refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan was the most effective way to manage the situation. But that never happened because of paranoia that billions of people would start moving to Europe if you made the journey it even slightly less deadly.
The truth is that community, family, and familiar language/culture are enough for people to tolerate even pretty horrid economic conditions. It's crazy that people who wouldn't even move to the nearest big city fir better opportunities just because they have a family and roots in their current town so often don't extend the same empathy to the vague mass of "Africans" who are constantly dreaming of leaving everything behind to move halfway across the world for purely economic reasons.
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u/GMantis 23h ago
You see this all the time with refugee policies. For example, during the European migrant crisis in the 2010s, experts repeatedly pointed out that setting up asylum processing centres at the refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan was the most effective way to manage the situation. But that never happened because of paranoia that billions of people would start moving to Europe if you made the journey it even slightly less deadly.
This is not paranoia, but elementary logic. If people are willing to risk their lives to reach Europe, a lot more would try to reach Europe if they didn't have to risk their lives. And of course that they're willing to risk their lives in the first place is a good indication that many people in these countries do seem to think that "any existence at all in a western country is always better than any normal existence in any non-western country".
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u/C9Prosecutor 1d ago
Yeah if you look at his arrest photos he’s smiling, He was either 16 or 19 when it happened and got some level of education in prison
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u/PoopMobile9000 1d ago
wtf that was 17 years ago and he’s just getting sentenced?
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u/kingtacticool 1d ago
The date on the article says 2011
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u/BigBallininBasterd 1d ago
Halfway there
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u/OrphanFeast87 1d ago
People would benefit from reading the articles instead of just the headlines.
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u/butternutflies 1d ago
So what happens when he gets out? Stays in the US? Go back to Somalia? Bro is kinda fucked either way, right?
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u/yeahalrightgoon 1d ago
The whole story is fucked and sad tbh. Somalians only became pirates because the government collapsed, so foreign fishing fleets rock up and take all the fish. So you end up with a bunch of Somalian fisherman with boats but no fish to catch. Coupled with a country in ruins, piracy was the logical choice at that point. It's not right, but it's understandable.
Phillips was warned to stay 600 miles from the coast because ships were being attacked regularly if they sailed closer. He sailed anywhere between 235 and 300 miles depending on if his crew who hate him and think he put them at unnecessary risk are telling the story, or he is.
Either way, it's a story of a captain who ignored the very neccessary warnings because he thought he knew better, was then captured because he didn't follow the pirate attack plan of turning the ship off and locking everyone into a safe compartment until the Navy could get there to scare them off. But ended up getting a movie where he was made out to be a hero.
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u/TooTallTrey 1d ago
3 square meals a day in an American prison honestly sounds better than trying to survive in Mogadishu. He got off easy.
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u/FORDEY1965 23h ago
Headline should read was sentenced, not is sentenced.. Makes it sound as if he's been chillin for the past 17 years
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u/Cake-Over 21h ago
Did you know that you can book as a passenger on a cargo ship? It sounds infinitely more interesting than a cruise ship.
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u/Ewggggg 1d ago
How can he be charged in a country he never visited? Just because the ship is owned by an Danish company registered under an American flag?
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u/Gemmabeta 1d ago
Piracy is considered a universal crime (Hostis humani generis--enemy of humanity), so it's literally under the jurisdiction of every nation.
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u/Sycraft-fu 1d ago
Something people have to remember about crimes at sea and piracy in particular is that it goes back to some OLD treaties among nations. Countries realized that nobody could really claim the whole ocean, everyone wanted to use it, so they worked out treaties on how that would go, including on crime ws handled.
Well piracy in particular was a real problem during the age of sail and so they started to get pretty harsh about it and one of those things is the whole "universal crime" thing. The countries decided that if you caught pirates, it didn't matter where they were from (it could easily be a mixed crew), which nation they were pretending to be flagged under, or the flag of the ship that they were attacking: Anyone had jurisdiction to respond to it.
So you could have pirates pretending to be a Spanish ship, attacking a Dutch ship, that gets noticed by a British navy ship and the British would be legally in the right to intervene.
Also, all of the sometimes strange "law of the sea" stuff aside many countries, including the US, take the view that if your crime harms their citizens or property, you can be punished by their courts for it, even if you aren't a citizen or resident of their country. You see cases like that for things like financial fraud on the Internet, where sometimes a person is extradited and tried in another nation because the people they defrauded were in that nation, not the nation of their residence.
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u/DornPTSDkink 1d ago
Piracy is a universal crime and has universal jurisdiction, any nation has the authority to intervene and imprison the pirates, no matter what nation they are from or who they attacked.
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u/insanekid66 1d ago
He should've gotten several life sentences rather than just the 33 he got with the plea deal. Some crimes shouldn't be eligible for "deals".
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u/TheFlyingFoodTestee 1d ago
I got really confused reading that headline and thought Captain Phillip himself was incarcerated
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u/DerCatrix 1d ago
I really want to know if he’s seen the movie