Feds arrest suspect in 2012 Benghazi consulate attack, Bondi says

Ella Lee / The Hill  

Federal authorities have arrested a suspect in connection with the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

The suspect, Zubayr al-Bakoush, has been extradited to the United States to face charges related to murder, terrorism and arson, Bondi announced at a press conferenc.

“We have never stopped seeking justice for that crime against our nation,” she said. 

The attorney general called al-Bakoush “one of the key participants” behind the attack and said he arrived at Andrews Air Force Base at 3 a.m. Friday, met by FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, whose office will prosecute the case.

The four Americans killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack, when a coalition of extremists targeted U.S. facilities in Benghazi, were J. Christopher Stevens, the then-U.S. ambassador to Libya; Sean Smith, who served as a State Department information management officer in Benghazi; and Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who were Navy SEALS and CIA security contractors.

“We have never forgotten those heroes,” Bondi said Friday. 

Pirro said that al-Bakoush faces an eight-count indictment that includes charges for the Americans’ murders. It also includes a charge for the attempted murder of State Department Special Agent Scott Wickland, she said. 

Al-Bakoush faces an eight-count indictment that includes charges for the Americans’ murders. Court records show he was indicted by a federal grand jury in November, and the indictment was unsealed Friday.

He also faces a charge for the attempted murder of State Department Special Agent Scott Wickland.

Al-Bakoush was first charged in a 2015 complaint that had been sealed for 11 years. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney.

The arrest of al-Bakoush marks the first arrest tied to the attack in nearly nine years. Patel said the suspect was apprehended “overseas” but did not provide additional details about the arrest. 

Libyan national Mustafa al-Imam was captured in 2017 and, in 2020, sentenced to more than 19 years in prison for crimes connected to the terrorist attack.

Ahmed Abu Khatallah, a Libyan militia leader whom prosecutors portrayed as the mastermind of the attack, was convicted of four counts in 2017 and sentenced to 22 years in prison. In 2024, he was resentenced to 28 years in prison after a judge deemed the initial sentence “unreasonably low.”

The Benghazi attack became a political lightning rod, as Republicans hit then-President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from all sides over the administration’s handling of the attack. 

Criticism over security at the diplomatic outpost and whether the administration sought to portray the attack as a protest over an offensive video about Islam instead of a plotted terrorist attack. 

A 2016 final report by House Republicans faulted the Obama administration with a slow response but found no new evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton, who by then was the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. See video here.