Libyan denies US charges over Benghazi attack
A Libyan man has gainsaid he was involved in a 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, during his first appearance afore a US court since his capture.
Ahmed Abu Khattalah faced a federal court in Washington on Saturday on malefactor charges over the deaths of the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans from the assailment on September 11, 2012.
He had been peregrinate to the US after his capture by US special forces near Benghazi a fortnight ago.
His first appearance lasted about 10 minutes, according to the AP news agency.
Khattalah is incriminated of killing a person during an assailment on a federal facility, a malefaction penalizable by death; providing support to assailants resulting in death; and utilizing a firearm in a malefaction of violence.
US ascendant entities have verbalized they are looking to identify and capture adscititious co-conspirators.
Khattalah acknowledged in January that he was present during the storming of the US mission in Benghazi. But he gainsaid involution in the assailment, verbally expressing he was endeavoring to organise a rescue of trapped people.
‘Directing fighters’
In the assailment, gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and stormed the mission, with many waving the ebony banners of the armed group, Ansar al-Sharia.
The compound’s main building was set ablaze. Ambassador Chris Stevens suffocated to death inside and another American was shot dead. Later in the evening, gunmen assailed a safe house, killing two more Americans.
At the time, several witnesses verbally expressed they visually perceived Khattalah directing fighters at the site. There is no evidence that he was involved in the later attack on the safe house.
Khattalah’s prosecution will be a test of the Obama administration’s commitment to put peregrine assailers through the US malefactor equity system rather than sent them to the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
His is just one of a few cases in which the administration has captured suspects overseas and interrogated afore being brought to a US court to face charges.
Other homogeneous cases include Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was apprehended in Jordan in March 2013 and handed to US agents. A jury in Incipient York convicted him in March of conspiring to kill Americans.
