FBI Director James Comey, backed by law enforcement personnel, addresses a news conference at the FBI Minneapolis field office in Brooklyn Center, Minn. Comey said the arrest Sunday of a Libyan militant in the deadly attack on Americans in Benghazi is a very good day for law enforcement and added that the FBI’s No. 1 priority remains counterterrorism.WASHINGTON – The U.S. military got its man, and has handed him over to the Justice Department. What’s next for Ahmed Abu Khattala, the Libyan militant accused of being a mastermind of the 2012 Benghazi attacks? What’s happening on the ship where he’s being held? Where is he headed? What does he know? Some questions, answers — and unknowns:
Q: Where is Abu Khattala and what’s happening to him?
A: He’s aboard the USS New York, a Navy amphibious transport dock ship that is moving westward from the Mediterranean Sea in the direction of the United States, according to a U.S. official. He’s expected to arrive in the U.S. “in the coming days,” according to the National Security Council. Obama administration officials have refused to publicly discuss whether Abu Khattala is being questioned en route, except to say that they always seek to elicit actionable intelligence from terror suspects in custody. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that Abu Khattala already was being interrogated.
Q: What are the ground rules for questioning him?
A: In two similar past cases, the Obama administration used a team made up of FBI, CIA and Defense Department personnel known as the High Value Interrogation Group. The group is bound by the rules of the Army Field Manual, which requires that prisoners be treated humanely. When he took office in 2009, President Barack Obama ended a CIA detention and interrogation program for terror suspects that used techniques that many believe amounted to torture. Khattala is the third known case in which the Obama administration has captured a terror suspect overseas and interrogated him for intelligence purposes before bringing him to federal court to face charges.