The Justice Department said Wednesday it plans to retry a man accused of being a Somali pirate for hostage-taking, after a jury deadlocked on those charges last week.
The government announced its decision at a hearing Wednesday in the case of Ali Mohamed Ali. His lawyer, Matthew J. Peed, told U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle that Ali objected to a retrial and will a file a motion with the court seeking to prevent one.
Ali, 51, was previously acquitted of piracy, meaning the government couldn’t attempt to retry him on that more serious charge.
Peed said at Wednesday’s hearing that he will argue double jeopardy precludes retrying Ali, citing a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Yeager v. U.S. In that ruling, the high court said that if the charges all rely on the same basic facts, the defendant’s acquittal on some charges “protects him from prosecution for any charge for which that is an essential element.”
Huvelle set a deadline of Jan. 6 for the motion opposing a new trial on double jeopardy grounds.
Ali has been in custody since April 2011. Huvelle set a motions hearing date for March 10, meaning that if he’s not released before then, he will likely be locked up for at least three years without being convicted of a crime.
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