Abdi Yusuf Hassan, 56, from Minneapolis, and Mohamed Tahlil Mohamed, 43, from Mogadishu, were each sentenced to 30 years in prison for taking American journalist Michael Scott Moore hostage in Somalia.
A New York jury convicted them in February 2023 after a three-week trial.
In January 2012, Moore traveled to Somalia to research piracy. Soon after, armed men ambushed his car near Galkayo, Somalia, beat him, and held him captive alongside two Seychellois fishermen who had been abducted months earlier.
Moore was moved to the hijacked fishing vessel Naham III, where he and other hostages faced brutal conditions.
He was later returned to land, where his captors repeatedly moved him, chained him at night, and forced him to record proof-of-life videos demanding ransom. In September 2014, Moore was released after a ransom was paid.
Hassan, a Somali government official, was a leader among the pirates. He helped to plan the ransom demands and used his home as a pirate base.
Mohamed, a Somali army officer, served as head of security, organizing Moore’s transfers and maintaining the weapons used to guard him.
The FBI Boston and Minneapolis Field Offices investigated the case with assistance from the Department of State Diplomatic Security Service.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sam Adelsberg and Trial Attorney Josh Champagne of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section prosecuted the case with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs.