Death penalty debated in piracy case

Attorneys for a Somali man charged with hijacking a yacht and killing four Americans on board claim their client is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty.

Mental ability, death penalty debated in piracy case

By Scott Daugherty
The Virginian-Pilot

Attorneys for a Somali man charged with hijacking a yacht off the coast of Africa in 2011 and killing four Americans on board claim their client is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty.

Prosecutors disagree. They argue Ahmed Muse Salad was able to support himself for decades in Somalia and even served for a time as a guard for the president of Puntland – an autonomous state in the northeastern part of the country.

“The evidence is simply inconsistent with the defense claim that he is intellectually disabled,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Hatch wrote in court papers.

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Source: Pilot Online.

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