By Benjamin Weiser (NY Times) — The young Somali man brought to New York last month and accused of piracy was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Manhattan, federal prosecutors said.

The young man, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, whose age is unknown but who is believed to be a teenager, was the only survivor of a group of men that boarded the Maersk Alabama, a United States-flagged cargo ship, off the coast of Somalia on April 8, the authorities have said. The ship’s captain eventually offered himself as a hostage, and was later rescued in a daring Navy Seal operation, in which three of his captors were killed.

The indictment charges Mr. Muse with 10 counts, including piracy and conspiracy to seize a ship by force and to take hostages.

Mr. Muse is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday before Judge Loretta A. Preska in United States District Court in Manhattan. Any trial would seem to be many months away.

One of Mr. Muse’s lawyers, Philip L. Weinstein, a federal public defender, had no comment except to say that his client would enter a plea of not guilty.

When Mr. Muse was first charged in April, the office of Lev L. Dassin, the acting United States attorney for the Southern District, said that he was over 18 years old.

But Mr. Muse’s lawyers argued that he was under 18, and should be treated as a juvenile, which would include closing court proceedings to the public and to the news media.

A federal magistrate judge, Andrew J. Peck, held a closed hearing and took testimony from Mr. Muse’s father through a telephone hook up in Somalia, and an interpreter. The father said his son was born on Nov. 20, 1993, which would make him 15 years old.

But a New York police detective, who had traveled to Africa as part of the team investigating the incident, told Judge Peck that Mr. Muse, after giving varying ages, acknowledged that he was “between 18 and 19.”

The detective, Frederick Galloway, testified that Mr. Muse had apologized for lying. “He said, ‘When I pray again, I’ll ask Allah to forgive me for lying to you, and I won’t lie to you again,’ ” the detective said.

Mr. Muse is being held without bond in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan. If convicted of the piracy count, he faces a mandatory life sentence, the authorities said.

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