Ahmed Abu Khatallah, a top Benghazi attack suspect, was going on trial Monday on murder and terrorism charges linked to the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya where ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were murdered.
Federal prosecutors charge that Khatallah was among 20 people who stormed the U.S. mission with machine guns and grenade launchers, set it on fire, and later attacked an annex. U.S. government employees Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty also were murdered, NBC News reported.
A State Department review said although "systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies" left the compound vulnerable, no one in the department was at fault. Benghazi was a flashpoint in the 2016 presidential election where Republican and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump hammered Hillary Clinton, who served as secretary of state at the time, on the incident, NBC News noted.
House Republicans issued a report in June 2016 blaming the Obama administration for security lapses that led to Stevens' death, CNN reported. The report said the tragedy resulted from a combination of bureaucratic inertia, rapidly worsening security in Libya and inadequate resources in the months that led up to the four deaths on Sept. 11, 2012.
Prosecutors are claiming that Khatallah helped turn away emergency responders and leading the attackers to documents and computers in the compound, NBC News said.
Khatallah's lawyers charge their client was denied his rights to an attorney after he was captured, deprived of a speedy appearance before a judge, and was questioned under coercion, NBC News said.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C. ruled the statements made to the FBI initially could be admitted at the trial.
Khatallah was arrested in 2014 at a Libyan seaside villa by a team of U.S. special forces and FBI agents and taken to a U.S. Navy ship in the Mediterranean, NBC News said. He was held for 13 days there where he was questioned by U.S. intelligence and then by a separate team of FBI agents.