Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the Libyan militia leader convicted for his involvement in the 2012 terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, was resentenced on Thursday to 28 years in prison. This decision arrives despite federal prosecutors pushing for a sentence of at least 60 years to life.
The new sentence comes over two years after a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, determined that Khatallah’s original 22-year sentence was “unreasonably low”. The court directed the judge who imposed the initial sentence to reevaluate it. On Thursday, US District Judge Christopher Cooper extended Khatallah’s sentence by six years, arguing that the crimes did not justify a significantly harsher punishment. “No matter what I think, the government did not prove the most serious charges in this case,” Judge Cooper stated, referring to the four murder charges for which Khatallah was acquitted.
During the nearly two-hour hearing, Judge Cooper acknowledged the case’s impact on the families of the victims of the 2012 attack, in which the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed. He expressed his hope that the sentence “does not detract from their legacy.”
Khatallah, who was present at the hearing dressed in a white prison jumpsuit and sporting a long white beard, listened to the proceedings through interpreters but remained silent throughout. The courtroom saw attendance from several family members of the slain individuals, including the brother of CIA contractor Glen Doherty. Greg Doherty briefly expressed his family’s desire for a harsher sentence, stating, “We continue to feel that the sentence was too light.”
Khatallah was convicted in 2018 on four federal charges connected to the attack: conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, providing material support to terrorists, destroying a federal building, and carrying a semiautomatic weapon during a crime of violence. In the original sentencing, Judge Cooper handed down 12-year sentences for the first three crimes to be served concurrently, followed by a 10-year sentence for the fourth crime. In the new sentence, Khatallah received 15-year sentences for the first two crimes and an 18-year sentence for the third, which will also run concurrently, followed by the same 10-year sentence.
Following his 2018 conviction, both Khatallah and the Justice Department appealed the sentence. The prosecutors argued that it was significantly lower than appropriate. In July 2022, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Khatallah’s conviction but vacated the original sentence, labelling it “substantively unreasonably low”. The court criticized the lower court for neglecting charges of which Khatallah was acquitted yet taking a dramatic deviation from sentencing guidelines.
Prosecutors portrayed Khatallah as “an unrepentant terrorist” with profound hostility towards America, urging the judge for a life sentence. “It is difficult to overstate the defendant’s conduct,” prosecutor John Crabb emphasized, “It is important to impose a stiff sentence here.” On the other hand, Khatallah’s defence argued for maintaining the original 22-year sentence, asserting that the appeals court required a more thorough explanation rather than a harsher sentence.
During the seven-week trial in 2018, federal prosecutors depicted Khatallah as the orchestrator behind the Benghazi attacks, referring to him as a “stone-cold terrorist.” Despite the serious charges, a jury in DC acquitted him of the murders of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and US government employees Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty.
The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi triggered significant political controversy, affecting the tenures of then-President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Critics, particularly from the Republican party, accused Clinton and her team of insufficient action in response to the attacks and criticised the initial characterisation of the violence as a spontaneous protest.
The resentencing of Ahmed Abu Khatallah highlights the complexities and ongoing repercussions of the 2012 Benghazi attack. Despite federal prosecutors’ push for a life sentence, US District Judge Christopher Cooper deemed a 28-year sentence more appropriate, underscoring the limits of the judicial process in addressing unproven charges.
