Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Federal Judge Orders FBI to Search for More Christopher Steele Docs

2019-08-21

[PJMEDIA] After years of legal wrangling, a federal judge has given the FBI 60 days to cough up records of their communications with former British spy ~~Remington~~ Christopher Steele after he was terminated as a confidential human source.

The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch first sought FBI documents on Steele in May of 2017 through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The court initially sided with the FBI but reopened the case in 2018 when evidence emerged that Steele was an FBI informant. Judicial Watch again asked the FBI to search for their Steele records, but the FBI continued to stonewall, declining to confirm or deny that they even existed.

Now, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper has put an end to the cat-and-mouse game.

"Those records might either bolster or weaken Steele’s credibility as a source," Judge Cooper said in his ruling. "That information, in turn, could provide a basis on which to evaluate the FBI’s performance of its law-enforcement duties, including its judgment in selecting and relying on confidential sources, especially in connection with such a politically sensitive subject."

Link

Terror Networks

Ahmed Abu Khatallah - Accused leader of Benghazi attack sentenced to 22 years

2018-06-28

June 27 (UPI) -- The first suspect to be charged in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya was sentenced to 22 years in prison, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday.

Ahmed Abu Khatallah,

....before his capture a leader in a revolutionary gang working to overthrow Moammar Khaddaffy...

a former auto mechanic who prosecutors accused of masterminding the attack that killed four Americans, was found guilty on Nov. 28 of several terrorism-related charges. But Khatallah was found not guilty of the more serious charges, including murder.

The sentence imposed Wednesday is for conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, destroying property, placing lives in jeopardy within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States and one count of using and carrying a semiautomatic assault rifle during a crime of violence.

Despite being found not guilty of the more serious charges, District Judge Christopher Cooper still could have imposed a life sentence on Khatallah based on the charges he was convicted of but chose not to.

"Even if you did not pour the gasoline or light the match, the evidence showed you were aware of the attack, and once the gates were breached, the likelihood someone would die was extreme high. This was not guilt by association," Cooper told Khatallah, according to The Washington Post. "This case stands as an exemplar for the principle that a defendant accused of international terrorism can get a fair trial in the U.S. criminal justice system."

Khatallah's sentence marks an end to a four-year legal battle since he was captured in Libya on June 14, 2014 and taken to the United States to stand trial.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Ahmed Abu Khatallah cleared of murder over 2012 attack

2017-11-29

[Al Jazeera] A federal jury in the United States has cleared a Libyan man of the most serious charges in connection with a deadly attack on a US diplomatic compound in Libya's Benghazi five years ago.

Ahmed Abu Khatallah was accused of orchestrating the September 11, 2012 attack that killed Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans.

On Tuesday, he was acquitted of murder but convicted on lesser terrorism-related charges.

Al Jazeera's Shihab Rattansi, reporting from Washington, DC, said Khatallah had overall been charged with 18 counts but was cleared of all but four of those, including "providing material support for terrorism".

Yet, he still faces 45 years in prison if he is given the maximum sentence for each of those four convictions, Rattansi noted.

"The prosecution had presented him as a ringleader for the attack, the defence though had said he was simply a bystander who appeared on the scene ... after the attack had taken place," said Rattansi, adding that this was a point that the prosecution "did have to concede".

"The defence also tried to poke holes in the prosecution's argument by saying that its star witness was paid $7m for his testimony," he added.

"In addition, they raised questions about the manner which Khatallah was interrogated - he was seized and then kept on a boat at sea for two weeks and interrogated without a lawyer, according to the defence."

Political storm
Khatallah has been awaiting trial since 2014 when he was captured by a team of US military and FBI officials in Libya and transported on a 13-day journey to the US aboard a navy vessel.

Before his capture, he was part of a revolutionary gang aimed at overthrowing Muammar Qadaffy
...a proud Arab institution for 42 years, now among the dear departed, though not the dearest...
's government.

Stevens was killed in the attack along with Sean Patrick Smith, a state department information management officer.

Nearly eight hours later, at a CIA complex nearby, two more Americans, contract security officers, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, died in a mortar attack.

The Benghazi attack stirred up a political storm in the US, where Republicans repeatedly accused

Perennial Presidential Campaigner Hillary Crooked Hillary Clinton
... former first lady, former secretary of state, former presidential candidate, Conqueror of Benghazi, Heroine of Tuzla, formerly described by her supporters as the smartest woman in the world, usually described by the rest of us as The Thing That Wouldn't Go Away...
, the then-secretary of state, of failing to adequately protect the diplomatic compound.

Link

Terror Networks

The Benghazi Attack Is Finally Being Properly Prosecuted

2017-09-30

[New Yorker] On the night of June 15, 2014, eight Americans‐six Delta Force operators, an F.B.I. agent, and an Arabic translator‐travelled in rubber boats across the Mediterranean and arrived on a beach in Benghazi, Libya. They hustled across the sand and snuck into a nearby safe house. Their plan was to lure and capture Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the alleged ringleader of the most politicized terrorist attack since 9/11.

Twenty-one months earlier, on September 11, 2012, Khatallah had, according to federal prosecutors, coördinated the assault on the American Consulate in Benghazi. Two State Department officials, including the U.S. Ambassador, Christopher Stevens, died in that attack, and two C.I.A. contractors were killed in a subsequent firefight at a nearby C.I.A. facility.

A day after the eight-man team beached on the coast, one of Khatallah’s associates unwittingly led Khatallah to the safe house. As soon as Khatallah stepped into the dark villa, several soldiers pounced on him. He tried to kick, punch, and bite his way free, without success. The F.B.I. agent present‐who has been identified in court by only a surname, "Johnson"‐brought Khatallah into a bathroom, where he covered the suspect’s eyes, plugged his ears, and stuffed a bit into his mouth. The team then hustled Khatallah across the beach, boarded its boats, and raced toward the U.S.S. New York, a twenty-five-thousand-ton* amphibious transport dock made, in part, with steel recovered from the World Trade Center towers, and waiting offshore.

The Benghazi attack has been thoroughly scrutinized. The Republican-led House of Representatives spent millions of dollars and held hearing after hearing on the matter during President Barack Obama’s second term. But the lawmakers leading the hearings seemed more focussed on Hillary Clinton and her colleagues‐trying to find any missteps they made before, during, or after the attack that could be used for political purposes‐than on the alleged perpetrators of the violence itself.

Meanwhile, the hunt for Khatallah was being pursued by operators and analysts from the C.I.A., Joint Special Operations Command, and the F.B.I. One of the biggest questions for them was what to do with Khatallah once they found him.

Counterterrorism officials considered a drone strike or a lethal raid, a former military official told me, but President Obama and the Justice Department wanted to capture him alive and bring him to the United States to stand trial.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Benghazi Attack Suspect Khatallah Pleads Not Guilty To 17 New Charges

2014-10-21

[Ynet] Ahmed Abu Khatallah, a Libyan bad boy accused of participating in the September 2012 attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya pleaded not guilty
"Wudn't me."
on Monday to 17 new charges related to the attack, including some that carry the death penalty.

Khatallah did not speak at the brief hearing, but his lawyer entered the plea on his behalf.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Libyan suspect pleads not guilty in Benghazi attack

2014-06-29

[REUTERS] A Libyan militia leader pleaded not guilty
"Wudn't me."
in a U.S. federal court on Saturday to a terrorism charge in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi that killed four Americans.

Ahmed Abu Khatallah was transferred to the U.S. District Court in Washington on Saturday morning from a Navy warship where he had been held since his June 15 capture by U.S. special operations forces in Libya.

He was charged at an afternoon hearing with conspiracy to provide material support to gunnies resulting in death in the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Captured key Benghazi suspect will face U.S. criminal courts

2014-06-18

[CNN] U.S. special forces working with the FBI captured a key suspect in the deadly 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Libyan militia leader Ahmed Abu Khatallah was captured over the weekend near Benghazi, U.S. officials said. His is the first arrest and detention by the United States in connection with the Benghazi attack.

Abu Khatallah will be brought to the United States to face charges "in the coming days," said Edward Price, a front man for the National Security Council.

Abu Khatallah, who faces three federal criminal charges, will be tried in U.S. courts, said Attorney General Eric Inaction Jackson Holder
... aka Mister Fast and Furious...

Link

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