WASHINGTON — Four days after his capture, the first Libyan jihadi arrested in the deadly 2012 Benghazi embassy attack remains under interrogation on a slow ship to DC, officials said Wednesday.
Ahmed Abu Khattala, who could face the death penalty as an accused key leader in the fiery attack, is in custody aboard the USS New York, a Navy ship built with 7 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center.
Interrogators are bound by US law, but can still grill the accused terrorist on issues of imminent threat to US interests — what they are calling “actionable intelligence” — prior to Mirandizing him.
The decision on when to read him his rights rests solely with President Obama.
Justice Department officials won’t say when Abu Khattala will arrive in the States, whether he has been warned of his right to remain silent, or why he’s being shipped in slow motion.
“There aren’t any reasons I can say,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
But Abu Khattala’s slow passage from the Mediterranean Sea could provide the feds with weeks of lawyer-free access to the suspect accused in the embassy attack that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and two others.
Back in April 2011, a Somali al Qaeda suspect was interrogated for two months on a Navy ship without being read his rights or offered a lawyer.
“They should keep interrogation as long as they have to. Days, weeks, months, whatever it takes,” said Rep. Peter King (R-NY), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
King called it “very poetic justice” that the suspect was aboard the New York.
Already, Abu Khattala is giving his American hosts a “history lesson” on his militant group, Ansar al-Sharia, Fox News reported.