Alleged Mastermind in Benghazi Attack Indicted on 17 Charges

A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. has handed down 17 new conspiracy charges against Ahmed Abu Khatallah, an alleged key perpetrator of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks against U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya,  NPR reported.

Khatallah, 43, was captured by U.S. special forces in June 2014.

The indictment verifies that computers containing classified information were stolen in the course of the initial attack on the U.S. mission that took the lives of ambassador Chris Stevens and communications specialist Sean Smith, Fox News reported.

Khatallah had been held on a one-count indictment. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

"The superseding indictment describes Khatallah's alleged role in the attacks at a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi and a second U.S. facility there, known as the annex.

"According to the superseding indictment, Khatallah was a leader of an extremist militia group and he conspired with others to attack the facilities, kill U.S. citizens, destroy buildings and other property, and plunder materials, including documents, maps and computers containing sensitive information," according to a Justice Department  statement.

The State Department had initially played down a Fox News report that computers containing sensitive data including the location of the CIA annex had been looted.

After overseeing the assault on the mission, Khatallah went back to a compound in Benghazi where gunmen were assembling for the annex attack. That onslaught, which employed mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, took the lives of security officers Tyrone Snowden Woods and Glen Anthony Doherty, Fox reported.

Controversy has surrounded the Benghazi episode partly because the Obama administration initially said that the deaths were caused by a demonstration that had turned violent, according to Fox.

The latest indictment charges Khatallah with "substantial planning" and "premeditation" to cause death and commit terrorism.

Earlier reports identified Khatallah as a possible mastermind of the plot. Fox had characterized him as "muscle on the ground."

The new indictment refers to him as "the commander of Ubaydah Bin Jarrah (UBJ), an Islamist extremist militia in Benghazi, which had the goal of establishing Sharia law in Libya."

It says that "in approximately 2011, UBJ merged with Ansar al-Sharia (AAS), another Islamist extremist group in Libya with the same goal of establishing Sharia law in the country. Khatallah was a Benghazi-based leader of AAS."

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