Libyan faces life in prison after mixed verdict
WASHINGTON — A former militia leader from Libya was convicted on Tuesday of terrorism charges arising from the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. But he was acquitted of multiple counts of the most serious offense, murder.
The defendant, Ahmed Abu Khattala, 46, was the first person charged and prosecuted in the attacks, which took on broader significance as Republicans and conservative news outlets sought to use them to damage the presidential ambitions of Hillary Clinton, who was then secretary of state. Yet the seven-week trial in federal court in Washington received relatively little attention from such quarters.
Khattala was convicted on four counts — including providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy to do so, destroying property and placing lives in jeopardy at the mission, and carrying a semi-automatic firearm during a crime of violence — but acquitted on 14 others. He faces life in prison.
The outcome was reminiscent of the 2010 federal trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian man and former Guantanamo Bay detainee who was charged in federal court as a conspirator in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed hundreds. Ghailani was acquitted of most of the charges, including each murder count for those who died, but he was still sentenced to life in prison for a conviction on one count of conspiracy.
Khattala betrayed no emotion in response to the verdict. Khattala’s attorney, Michelle Peterson, declined to comment afterward.
The trial included dramatic testimony from State Department and CIA operatives who fought desperately to prevent militants from killing more Americans stationed in Benghazi.
On the night of the attacks, armed men overran the diplomatic compound and set fire to it. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and another State Department employee, Sean Smith, were killed. Hours later, militants attacked the nearby CIA base with mortars and smallarms fire. Two CIA security contractors, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty, were killed, and others were wounded.