Benghazi suspect pleads for return to Libya

The man charged with leading the September 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans asked a federal judge Monday to return him to Libya, alleging that his seizure and interrogation "outrageously" violated U.S. constitutional standards for due process.

The request came in the first substantive motions by Libyan terrorism suspect Ahmed Abu Khattala, who pleaded innocent last fall to charges including murder, conspiracy and destroying a U.S. facility in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

In pleadings before U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, Abu Khattala's attorneys challenged the policies adopted by U.S. officials to gain valuable intelligence from terrorism suspects while preserving the ability to try them in civilian courts. The defense urged the federal courts not to legitimize what it called the "well-planned lawlessness ... [of his] arrest, abduction and interrogation."

Abu Khattala was reportedly held by American authorities for 13 days aboard a U.S. Navy vessel without a lawyer present.

He was charged by sealed complaint in July 2013 and formally indicted in June 2014. The U.S. government has called him the ringleader of the Benghazi attacks.

A Section on 08/04/2015

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