Not that long ago, accused Benghazi ringleader Ahmed Abu Khattala didn’t have a care in the world.
When The New Yorker magazine came to interview him at his home in Leithi, a neighborhood in Benghazi, in April, he looked and behaved more like a suburban homeowner than a terror mastermind, the magazine reports.
Abu Khattala was relaxed and greeted passing neighbors, before sitting down in a green leatherette chair to tell the mag he had no fear of US forces coming after him.
“I am living a normal life here. I am not afraid of anything, because I trust in God,” he told the magazine. “This is fate. If God determines you will be here today and gone tomorrow, there is no escape.”
Abu Khattala proclaimed his innocence in connection with the September 2012 attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
He copped to being at the scene, but said he did nothing more than help direct traffic outside.
He challenged US prosecutors to make a case against him.
“There is no case against me,” Abu Khattala said. “But I am not the one who needs to prove my innocence. The Americans must prove their accusation.”
US commandos and FBI agents grabbed Abu Khattala on Sunday and took him to the USS New York. He’s now in transit to the United States for trial in a civilian court.
In the April interview, he said the US State Department has only itself to blame for not adequately guarding its consulate in Benghazi.
“Why didn’t the Americans insure enough protection for the consulate and their ambassador?” he said.
While denying any role in the deadly 2012 attack, Abu Khattala said he wasn’t all that sympathetic about the slayings either.
“I never met this man [Stevens]. He is a person who has been killed just like any Palestinian, any Iraqi, any Syrian,” Abu Khattala said. “Killing happens every day in Benghazi.”