Abu Khatallah, the first person publicly charged in connection with the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, was acquitted of federal murder charges Tuesday after a grueling seven-week trial.
Khatallah was found guilty on four of 18 counts, including two related to conspiracy to provide material support or resources to terrorists, one related to damaging the U.S. mission at Benghazi, and one related to carrying a semi-automatic weapon. He will face up to 60 years in prison.
As the jury delivered its verdict, Khatallah sat expressionless in a white button-down, with shaggy white hair and a long yellowish-grey beard. He fidgeted slightly ahead of the announcement and peered directly over at the spectator benches to his left.
Federal prosecutors painted Khatallah as a ringleader of the September 11, 2012, attacks, which left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. But carefully negotiated documents known as “stipulations,” which the defense said “were used as substitutes for classified evidence” told a different story.
One document describes the attack on the nearby annex as “a very professional job that was not carried out by local fighters in Benghazi.” Other documents say that the government possesses information that al Qaeda-linked groups and individuals planned and executed the attacks. Two other documents temper the role that Ansar al Sharia, a group Khatallah was affiliated with, played in the attack.
Over the course of the trial, jurors heard from Libyan nationals, including a man paid $7 million by the U.S. government to befriend and help capture Khatallah; they heard from State Department and CIA officials, some never publicly interviewed and others wearing disguises; they heard from weapons and arson experts.
Khatallah, prosecutors said, had a “fanatical agenda” and was determined to see Libya governed by sharia law. “The United States was a threat to that agenda,” assistant U.S. attorney Michael DiLorenzo said in the prosecution’s closing argument. Khatallah believed that the U.S. was operating a spy base in Benghazi and wanted America out, he said.
According to the government, Khatallah did not arrive at the mission until after midnight, and he did not make it to the CIA annex, where former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed.
But as the “on-scene commander,” Khatallah and his “hit squad” were “the tip of the spear” the night of the attacks, prosecutors argued.
“You have not heard that the defendant was involved in that initial charge on the mission. You have not heard that he lit the match that killed two Americans. … You have not heard that he fired the mortar,” said DiLorenzo. “That does not matter because a person is equally guilty as the individual who lit the match or fired the mortar if they are a co-conspirator or if they are aider or abetter.”
Prosecutors laid out a web of on-scene attackers that they said Khatallah coordinated with to implement the attack. They displayed concurrent phone records and video footage that showed that individuals involved in the violence were in constant communication with Khatallah—suggesting that he was advising them from afar.
But the defense argued that the prosecution’s evidence was thin—they pointed in part to grainy video footage, “excel spreadsheet” phone records, and paid testimony from some witnesses. They also repeatedly raised concerns about the conditions of Khatallah’s interrogation.
In 2014, Khatallah was captured by U.S. forces and hauled aboard a Navy ship for a 13-day journey, during which he was interrogated by officials for intelligence information. Days later, he was questioned by FBI investigators for the eventual trial.
“Mr. Abu Khatallah had just been clunked over the head, abducted from his country, hoisted up like a slab of meat onto a navy ship, blindfolded,” said attorney Michelle Peterson during the defense’s closing argument. “He wasn’t allowed to talk to the guard other than to say two words: bathroom and water. That was it.”
The U.S. government paid a man named “Ali” $7 million to grow close to Khatallah and lure him to his 2014 capture. Ali testified during the trial that Khatallah told him he “would have killed all the Americans that night” if others had not “stopped” him. The defense, in turn, described him as the “$7 million dollar man.”
Khatallah’s lawyers argued that he did not mastermind the attacks or participate in them. Instead, the government was using him as a “soft target,” or someone to blame.
“They want you to hate him. That’s what this case has been about,” said Peterson. “They want you to hate him enough that you disregard the holes in this evidence that they’ve presented. That’s what they’ve been doing throughout trial, presenting evidence in a way designed to get you to hate Mr. Abu Khatallah.”
As the jury deliberated, the defense filed for a mistrial, in part citing the “improper comments” made by the government, such as referring to “evidence that was never admitted at trial.” They also cited the government’s treatment of the stipulations, which they referred to during the trial’s final hours as “words on pieces of paper.”
As the trial was ongoing, U.S. forces captured another suspect related to the attacks, Mustafa al Imam. He is slated to also receive a civil trial.
