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Tunisia: Libya consulate attack suspect arrested
An armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi, Libya, Sept. 11, 2012. / AFP/GettyImages
Updated at 3:58 p.m. ET
TUNIS, Tunisia A Tunisian man who was arrested in Turkey earlier this month with reported links to the attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya has been returned to Tunisia and is facing terrorism charges, his lawyer said Wednesday.
Ali Harzi was repatriated to Tunisia on Oct. 11 by authorities in Turkey, and a judge issued his arrest warrant, lawyer Ouled Ali Anwar told The Associated Press. He said his client was told by a judge Tuesday that he has been charged with "membership of a terrorist organization in a time of peace in another country."
A person who saw Harzi's court dossier told The Associated Press that prosecutors are linking him to the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead.
He said Harzi is one of two Tunisians arrested Oct. 3 in Turkey when they tried to enter the country with false passports. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. Harzi's alleged role in the attacks is not clear.
Meanwhile, a U.S. government official told CBS News that American investigators are in possession of some of the security camera video footage recorded during the attack. The official said the footage is of decent quality and investigators are reviewing it.
CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan reports that the State Department has footage from 10 cameras. The FBI obtained the footage from Libyans who removed it from the consulate compound days after the attack. The footage was recorded on non-infrared cameras and isn't complete.
Anwar denied there was any evidence that Ali "is implicated in the Benghazi attacks." He added his client was not using a fake passport, saying he was used as a "scapegoat to satisfy the Americans."
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. has been looking into the arrests of two Tunisian men being detained in Turkey reportedly in connection with the attack. The State Department in Washington had no further comment on Wednesday.
Tunisian Interior Ministry spokesman Tarrouch Khaled confirmed that Harzi was in custody in Tunis. Khaled told The Associated Press "his case is in the hands of justice," but he would not elaborate further on the case.
The charge against Harzi is punishable by six to 12 years in prison, according to the provisions of the anti-terrorist law in force in Tunisia since 2003.
His arrest comes less than a week after a Libyan Islamist militia commander who a witness and officials say helped lead the deadly assault said that he was at the building that night, but denied he was involved in the attack.
On Thursday, Ahmed Abu Khattala, who describes himself as a founder and commander of the Islamist militia Abu Obaida Bin Jarrah, told The Associated Press by telephone that he went to the consulate to rescue men that he had been informed were trapped inside.
Abu Khattala said that, despite reports of his involvement, he was going about his daily business as a construction contractor in Benghazi.
A Libyan witness interviewed in the aftermath of the attack by the AP said that Abu Khattala was present directing fighters. The witness spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation.
An AP reporter was also shown a camera photo of a long-haired, long-bearded man who was wearing the Afghan-style robe favored by many radicals and whom other Benghazi residents identified as the 41-year-old militia leader. The consulate's gate with barbed wire could be seen in the background.
The New York Times has quoted unnamed Libyan officials as singling out Abu Khattala as a commander in the attack, calling him a leader in the hardline Islamist Ansar al-Shariah militia. Other Libyan witnesses say they saw Ansar al-Shariah trucks mounted with heavy weapons outside the consulate the night of the attack.
Emails paint picture of Benghazi attack
On Tuesday, CBS News obtained three email alerts that were put out by the State Department as the attack unfolded.
The third, sent at 6:07 p.m. ET -- roughly two hours after the initial attack began -- contained the subject line "Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibilty for Benghazi Attack."
The overlap between Abu Obaida Bin Jarrah and Ansar al-Shariah is not clear. Libya's rebel council moved to disband Abu Obaida Bin Jarrah after the July 2011 assassination of rebel army chief Abdel Fattah Younis, a killing blamed on the Islamist group. Some militiamen say Abu Obaida Bin Jarrah fighters joined Ansar al-Shariah, which rose to prominence during fighting later in the war and was entrusted with security in post-war Benghazi.
In Abu Khattala's account of the night, he was informed by phone that there was a protest at the building and that four men were trapped inside. He and his men went there to rescue them.
Abu Khattala declined to explain further how and why he was called upon to go to the site. Libya's government lacks a strong army and police force and has relied on militias, including in the past Ansar al-Shariah, to keep order.
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered additional security for the U.S. mission in Benghazi ahead of the terrorist attack but the orders were never carried out, according to "legal counsel" to Clinton who spoke to best-selling author Ed Klein.
Those same sources also say former President Bill Clinton has been "urging" his wife to release official State Department documents that prove she called for additional security at the compound in Libya, which would almost certainly result in President Obama losing the election.
Appearing on TheBlazeTV's "Wilkow!" on Wednesday night, Klein told host Andrew Wilkow that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been having "big fights" for "two or three weeks" about the issue, according to his two sources on Clinton's legal counsel.
While Bill Clinton wishes his wife would "exonerate" herself by releasing the documents that show she wasn't at fault for the tragic security failure in Libya, the secretary of state refuses to do so because she doesn't want to be viewed as a traitor to the Democratic party.
On Glenn Beck's radio show earlier on Wednesday, Klein said his information comes from two "very good" sources.
Wilkow pointed out the obvious, that the Obamas and the Clintons have a "very behind the scenes, tense relationship" — to put it lightly.
"I said to you last night, and I think I stand corrected, that it seemed like Obama out-Clintoned the Clintons," Wilkow said. "But Clinton seems to have gone along with all of this because he knew that Hillary would be exonerated in the end."
He then asked Klein whether he thought Clinton would resign over the Libya scandal and expose the truth.
"No," the author said immediately. "I can't imagine that she would resign. It would bring down the entire administration. [Obama] would lose the election and she would be essentially blamed by the left-wing base of the party."
"She will not be tarred with the blame for bringing down this administration," Klein added.
In an exclusive interview with TheBlaze, Klein confirmed that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been engaging in "heated discussions" where the former president has urged his wife to "release the documents that would exonerate her."
He reiterated that Clinton has refused to do so because she fears she would look like a "Judas," or a traitor, in the administration and it might hurt her chances for a presidential nomination in 2016.
If the claims turn out to be true and Clinton did suggest more security be sent to Benghazi, it is appropriate to ask: why didn't it happen?
Klein said Clinton's request for beefed up security would have to go through CIA special ops and or the Pentagon.
"But none of that would happen with the National Security advisor to the president of the United States Tom Donnellan going to the president and saying, 'We want to send reinforcements to Libya because our ambassador is in jeopardy,'" Klein explained.
Ultimately, he indicated the ultimate authority would have been President Obama.
Wilkow and Klein also discussed what role Obama's closest advisor, Valerie Jarrett, played in the Benghazi cover-up.
By Obama's own admission, Klein said, the president never makes a big decision without first consulting with Jarrett.
"We have to assume that Valerie Jarrett, who is also by the way hooked into the Chicago campaign...that she was part of this cover-up in the White House."
He continued: "The CIA got cables, the Department of Defense got cables, the NSA got cables during the attack on Benghazi, in addition to the emails that have since been made public. We know that there are cables that we haven't seen yet, confirming the State Department cables that this was an al-Qaeda linked attack."
These new revelations, following Tuesday night's explosive report that 300 to 400 national security officials received emails detailing the Benghazi terrorist attack as it was happening, raise fresh questions about the truth behind the Benghazi attack.
The emails revealed that the Libyan radical Islamic group Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility for the attack just two hours after it began. White House officials told CBS News that an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Libya, providing Washington with a live feed to the chaos that unfolded.
Anybody who thinks that Clinton's legal counsel is even on speaking terms with Ed Klein needs to have their head examined.
The lengths to which some will go to try to manufacture a "scandal" is jaw-dropping. What is apparent to any thinking human being is that militants took advantage of a demonstration to launch an attack on a Benghazi consulate. The two are not mutually exclusive. They both took place. Now the hunt is underway for the perpetrators. That's pretty much all there is to the story.
Unless, of course, we start looking at the Republicans' voting record against funding for State Dept. security. Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans' cuts to her department would be "detrimental to America's national security" - a charge Republicans rejected. Republicans cut the administration's request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012.
Most public servants are politicians, but not all politicians are political ******; there is a big difference. I feel very comfortable with our President handling foreign policy. But I don't trust the Republicans in Congress, especially after they blocked just about every Democratic proposal there was just so they have a better chance of winning elections; that is not American.
I definitely do not trust any version of robot Romney or robot Ryan. Trust is the key issue, and it simply impossible for me to put my trust in two phonies. I like our President, and I like Joe Biden. I think it hard not to like them unless you are just plain ignorant. And for the record, I am an Independent, and I am unemployed. Let's go vote!
High unemployment, a ballooning national debt, lack of an effective foreign policy (Libyan embassy attack with a dead American ambassador & Navy Seals, Obama coverup and blaming it all on a video, etc.), and an inability to work with Congress are the reasons to boot this guy out of office when you are president you need to learn to work with Congress ... Democrats had control the first two years and he accomplished nothing. Last two years he couldn't work with others to get the job done. When that happens in business, someone gets fired! Time is up!
Shame on them all for turning their backs on these brave Americans over politics!
So you agree that President Bush should have known about the September 11, 2001 attacks in advance?
1.
Despite high unemployment numbers that are beginning to come down, the economy is fairly strong overall and is getting better despite the fact that the Republicans in congress decided, at the beginning of Obama's term, to play hardball politics, refusing to work with the President to help bring more people back to work, and to basically use a major crisis in our country for their own political advantage in 2010 and in this election.
2. The Republicans in Congress are controlled by the Defense Industry and the Oil Industry; this is why the Republicans in Congress, like Senator John McCain, want to send our military to Syria, perhaps back to Iraq, maybe Pakistan, Iran, Libya. This explains why the Republicans in Congress are so hawkish most of the time, that is when they are not speaking in front of 50 to 60 million people at a presidential debate. {When you are a candidate running for President and you are saying something that differs completely with leading members of your own party on such a serious issue as foreign policy, something is definitely wrong, and I would suggest that that something is the robot phony from Mass.