## Facts

- In November 2008, Somali pirates seized the CEC Future, a Danish-owned merchant ship flying a Bahamian flag, while it was on the high seas in the Gulf of Aden.
- The pirates used firearms and a rocket-propelled grenade, forced the crew at gunpoint to reroute the ship toward Somalia, and detained the crew during the hijacking.
- Two days after the seizure, Ali Mohamed Ali, a Somali national, boarded the ship and served as a negotiator and interpreter for the pirates.
- The ship was taken to Somali ports and remained under pirate control until released for ransom in January 2009; after Ali boarded, the vessel traveled mostly in territorial waters, with only a brief return to the high seas.
- Ali negotiated a ransom from an initial demand of $7 million to a final payment of $1.7 million, and sought a separate personal payment; he ultimately received both a share of the ransom and an additional wired payment.
- In 2011, U.S. authorities induced Ali to travel to the United States and arrested him upon arrival at Dulles International Airport.
- A federal indictment charged Ali with (1) conspiracy to commit piracy on the high seas, (2) aiding and abetting piracy on the high seas, (3) conspiracy to commit hostage taking, and (4) hostage taking.
- The district court dismissed the piracy-conspiracy count, limited the aiding-and-abetting piracy count to facilitative conduct occurring on the high seas, and dismissed the hostage-taking counts on due process grounds for lack of a sufficient U.S. nexus.
- The government took an interlocutory appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether aiding and abetting “piracy on the high seas” requires the aider’s facilitative conduct to occur on the high seas, or whether off-high-seas facilitation is sufficient if it facilitates a high-seas piracy act.
2. Whether a charge of conspiracy to commit piracy is cognizable under the federal piracy framework tied to the international law definition of piracy and universal jurisdiction.
3. Whether applying the federal hostage-taking statute to a foreign national’s overseas conduct without a traditional U.S. nexus violates due process.

## Decision

- Affirmed the dismissal of the conspiracy-to-commit-piracy charge.
- Reversed the restriction limiting the aiding-and-abetting piracy charge to Ali’s conduct on the high seas.
- Reversed the dismissal of the hostage-taking charges and remanded for further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- For aiding and abetting piracy, the relevant “high seas” requirement attaches to the principal piracy act; facilitative conduct may occur on land or in territorial waters if it facilitates piracy committed on the high seas.
- Piracy facilitation can be treated as part of a single continuous piracy episode for purposes of accomplice liability when linked to a completed high-seas piracy act.
- Conspiracy to commit piracy is not automatically encompassed within the federal piracy offense tied to the international law definition of piracy; absent clear statutory basis consistent with that definition, a stand-alone piracy conspiracy count may fail.
- A treaty-implementing criminal statute may apply extraterritorially without a traditional U.S. territorial or nationality nexus when the offense is of international concern and prosecution is consistent with due process notice and fairness.
- Due process does not require a specific U.S. nexus where international law and treaty obligations put offenders on notice that any state party may prosecute hostage taking.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit held that off-high-seas conduct can support aiding-and-abetting liability for piracy if it facilitates piracy committed on the high seas, reinstated hostage-taking charges as consistent with due process under a treaty-implementing statute despite minimal U.S. nexus, and left in place the dismissal of a stand-alone conspiracy-to-commit-piracy count.


United States v. Ali, 718 F.3d 929 (D.C. Cir. 2013)