WASHINGTON — The Libyan militant accused of masterminding the deadly Benghazi attacks was brought Saturday from a Navy warship to the federal courthouse in the District of Columbia, where he entered a plea of not guilty to a single conspiracy charge.
At 3:25 p.m., Ahmed Abu Khattala walked, unshackled, into a courtroom in downtown Washington, wearing a black, zip-up hooded sweat shirt and black pants. His beard was a flowing gray.
It was his first public appearance since he was captured in Libya two weeks ago, transported across the Atlantic Ocean in a ship made of steel from the World Trade Center’s rubble, and flown by helicopter into Washington on Saturday.
Wearing a headset and with his right hand raised, Abu Khattala said through an interpreter that he understood the proceedings and would tell the truth.
His public defender, Michelle Peterson, told a federal magistrate judge that her client was not guilty of the charge of “conspiracy to provide material support” on which a federal grand jury in Washington had indicted him Thursday.
In a three-count criminal complaint unsealed June 17, Abu Khattala was charged with killing a person during an attack on a federal facility, providing support to terrorists, and a weapons offense.
Ten minutes after the hearing began, it was over. Abu Khattala was led out of the courthouse to a waiting caravan of black SUVs, which took him across the Potomac River to the Alexandria Detention Center, a Virginia jail that has held other terrorist suspects since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The rare Saturday hearing, in the federal courthouse within blocks of the U.S. Capitol, was a presentment hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola. The session was the beginning of what are almost certain to be lengthy federal criminal proceedings.
Abu Khattala is the first of the alleged perpetrators to be apprehended in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi. He faces criminal charges in the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans. Stevens was the first U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty in more than three decades.
According to a law enforcement official, Abu Khattala was questioned during the journey from the Mediterranean Sea aboard the USS New York, an amphibious transport dock.
“There were conversations,” the official said.
The ship’s movements were a well-guarded secret, and all of its outbound communications were blacked out for security.
Abu Khattala’s is one of the most significant U.S. terrorism cases in recent memory.
His capture in Benghazi by U.S. special operations forces was a breakthrough for the Obama administration in an investigation that had dragged on after President Barack Obama promised that the perpetrators of the attacks would be brought to justice. The slow pace had fueled Republican criticism of the administration’s handling of the case.
