Mom: Captured Pirate Was Duped

She says he may have needed money
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 21, 2009 12:10 PM CDT
Mom: Captured Pirate Was Duped
Police and FBI agents escort the Somali pirate suspect identified as Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse into FBI headquarters in New York on April 20, 2009.   (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)

He’s at the center of the first piracy trial the US has seen in more than a century, but Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse’s mother says he’s a victim. “He was brainwashed,” she tells the AP. “People who are older than him duped him.” Muse, the lone surviving pirate from the hostage-taking of an American ship captain, is now in custody in New York, but his mother remembers a book-loving boy “wise beyond his age.”

Muse’s past remains something of a mystery. His mother hasn’t seen him since “he was in a school uniform,” she says. “He took all his books the day he disappeared…and did not come back.” His personal details are murky—his age, particularly, is a sticking point. His mother says he’s 16, while US authorities claim he’s at least 18. Since Muse wasn’t born in a hospital, no records exist to verify either age. (More Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse stories.)

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