NORFOLK -- A federal judge today sentenced a convicted Somali pirate to 41 1/2 years in prison after rejecting a prosecutor's call for a mandatory life prison term.
Mohamed Ali Said, 30, was convicted along with five other Somali men of piracy and related charges in the April 2010 attack on the dock landing ship Ashland.
Attorneys for Said and the five others argued that the mandatory life prison term violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Jackson agreed and is sentencing all five today and Thursday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ben Hatch argued that life in prison was appropriate, calling the attack extremely harsh and heinous and adding that Said has shown no remorse or acceptance of responsibility.
"Obviously the court has a different view of matters," U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson responded.
Said's attorney said his client had nothing to say. Said had previously argued that he was not a pirate and was working as a smuggler when the skiff he was on approached the Ashland off the Somali coast.
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