A Pirate in New York City

"[This] is the singular case of Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse (above), a Somali who speaks no English, is of uncertain age, and is being prosecuted under a federal law that has not been used in many decades and carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

On Tuesday, less than two weeks after the government says Mr. Muse and three other men took command of an American cargo ship off the coast of Africa, Mr. Muse was sitting in a packed courtroom, almost swallowed up by a large chair, his left hand bandaged heavily, as lawyers and a federal magistrate judge wrestled for more than an hour just to figure out how old he was." (-- NYT).

It could be a swansong, an amusing coda to New York City's status as the beating heart of Capitalism, but how odd that a pirate is on trial in Manhattan! I read elsewhere that during Thomas Jefferson's Presidency, piracy along the North African coast was so rife that he ordered U.S. ships to go on the attack, in effect launching a 'war' that of course he ought to have first asked permission for, from Congress... The last successful pirate attack on a U.S. ship was in 1804, 205 years ago.