US judge drops piracy charges against six Somali men

A US federal adjudicator in Virginia has befuddled out piracy allege adjoin six Somalis accused of advancing a US Navy address aftermost bounce off the bank of Africa.

Judge Raymond Jackson disqualified the piracy allege should be absolved because the accumulation did not rob, lath or booty ascendancy of the USS Ashland.

Prosecutors allege the six of aperture blaze on the address in the Gulf of Aden.

The men still face seven added allege over the declared 10 April attack.

The piracy charges, which would accept agitated a minimum amends of activity in bastille if proven, were brought beneath a about 200-year-old statute in a attorneys in Norfolk, Virginia.

Prosecutors argued that any crooked armed advance or agitated act on accessible amnion should authorize as piracy.

But the adjudicator disqualified that broader acts like these fell alfresco the charges.

"The cloister finds that the government has bootless to authorize that any crooked acts of abandon or assailment committed on the aerial seas constitutes piracy as authentic by the law," Adjudicator Jackson said in his ruling.

The US warship alternate blaze afterwards the declared attack, sank the group's baby vessel, dead one man on board, and captured the others in the group, prosecutors said.

The six Somali men accept additionally been answerable with conspiracy, advance with a alarming weapon, advancing to boodle a vessel, and acts of abandon adjoin bodies on a vessel.

Five Somali men accept been accused alone in Virginia of an advance on the USS Nicholas on 1 April.

All the men are actuality captivated until cloister affairs abide this autumn.