(AFP) – One of the “key participants” behind the 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi that left the ambassador and three other Americans dead has been arrested, officials said Friday. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the suspect, Zubayr al-Bakoush, has been brought to the United States and will face murder and other charges.
Speaking at a press conference, Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel declined to say where Bakoush was arrested, saying only that it was “overseas.” “Bakoush will now face American justice on American soil,” Bondi said. “We will prosecute this alleged terrorist to the fullest extent of the law. He’ll face charges related to murder, terrorism, arson, among others.”
Fox News broadcast what it said was exclusive footage of Bakoush’s arrival at a military base in Virginia outside Washington. In the footage, an elderly grey-haired man struggles to descend a flight of stairs from a plane and is then placed on a stretcher, where he lies shivering.
US ambassador Chris Stevens and three American staff were killed in the September 11, 2012 attack on the US consulate in Libya’s second-largest city — an assault blamed on an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group. Islamist militants armed with automatic weapons and grenades stormed the US compound at a time when the oil-rich North African country was torn by civil war. They set the building ablaze, killing Stevens and IT specialist Sean Smith through smoke inhalation, and then also attacked a CIA annex where two contractors died, both former Navy SEALs.
The assault, the first to claim the life of an American ambassador since 1979, deeply shocked the United States and caused a political storm for then president Barack Obama’s administration. The State Department, then headed by Hillary Clinton, was accused by its political foes of deadly mistakes and negligence over the bloodshed, which came 11 years to the day after al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks.
The United States has previously convicted at least two Libyans for involvement in the Benghazi attack. Ahmed Abu Khatallah was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2018 and Mustafa al-Imam was sentenced to nearly 20 years in 2020.
© 2024 AFP
