United States v. Beyle, No. 13-4895 (4th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseAfter a jury trial, Appellants, Abukar Osman Beyle and Shani Nurani Shiekh Abrar, were convicted on twenty-six criminal counts arising from the armed abduction and murder of four U.S. citizens off the coast of Somalia. The Fourth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the district court had jurisdiction over the charges of murder and concomitant use of a firearm because the site of the murders, thirty to forty nautical miles from the Somali coast, lay on the “high seas,” and thus, Appellants were within the reach of the U.S. criminal statutes under which they were convicted; and (2) Abrar was not denied his Fifth Amendment right to due process or his Sixth Amendment right to present witnesses material to his duress defense, and therefore, the district court did not err in denying Abrar’s motion to dismiss the indictment.
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