The United States has been denied direct access to a suspect held in Egypt in connection with the Benghazi attack on the U.S. Embassy in September, according to
Fox News.
U.S. authorities have been barred from interrogating Mohammed Jamal — also known as Abu Ahmed — who is suspected of setting up Islamist training camps in Eastern Libya. Militants involved in the Sept. 11 Benghazi terrorist attack allegedly used the camps for training.
It is not believed that Jamal directly took part in the attack that left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. However, this marks at least the second time the United States has been barred from interrogating a suspect held by a foreign government, Fox News reports.
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U.S. officials have requested access to the suspect, but were denied by the Egyptian authorities, according to Thomas Joscelyn, with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“The Egyptians like to control the interrogations and interviews of these suspects for their own reasons and of course the Americans should want access for our purposes as well,” Joscelyn said.
“As early as 2011, [Jamal] was setting up training camps inside eastern Libya . . . and they were drawing in recruits from around North Africa and Egypt [training] them in terms of how to operate mortars, and various types of heavy artillery — and it’s that type of artillery that was used in the attack in Benghazi,” he said.
Jamal was first imprisoned while former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was in office. He was released in 2011, and re-arrested in late 2012, according to the
Long War Journal.
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