The United States government has filed its first criminal charges pertaining to the 9/11/12 attacks on the Benghazi diplomatic facility, according to CNN’s justice and national-security correspondent Evan Perez. Ahmed Khattalah, a Libyan militia leader, is believed to have been involved in the attacks that resulted in the death of four Americans, including U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens. CNN’s sources did not reveal the exact charges brought against Khattalah.
Khattalh has been described as “propagating an al Qaeda-style ideology” by both Libyan government officials and former Islamic militants, and his group, based around Benghazi, was known to fly the black Salafist flag rather than the new Libyan flag.
Since soon after the attacks, he was widely believed to have been present in Benghazi that night.
“There’s no doubt the sheik was there,” one Libyan official told the Wall Street Journal in October 2012, using the title Khattalah’s followers give him. Further, he explained, “if the sheik was there, then the sheik was giving commands. That’s how the group operates.”
Earlier this summer, Khattalah did an interview with CNN in which he said he had yet to be interviewed by U.S. investigators.