The Panther Bay
Pirate Blog

Finally, the US has prosecuted and convicted its first pirates in 200 years . According to the Los Angeles Times:

The conviction on all counts, the first such verdict in an American court in nearly 200 years, carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison plus 80 years. Defence lawyers said they will appeal.

The five defendants listened to an interpreter through earphones as the court clerk pronounced them each guilty on 14 counts, including attempts to plunder a vessel and assault with a deadly weapon.

''Today's conviction demonstrates that armed attacks on US-flagged vessels are crimes against the international community and that pirates will face severe consequences in US courts,'' the attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Neil MacBride, said.

These were the pirates that attacked a US frigate last April (2010) thinking that the the warship was a merchant freighter.