Al-Qaeda leader in Libya detained in Turkey: Report

ISTANBUL

US Ambassador in Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed in a deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

Abd al-Baset Azzouz, the reported leader of al-Qaeda in Libya, was detained last month in northwestern Turkey after he entered the country with a fake passport, Turkish daily Milliyet reported on Dec. 4.

Azzouz was reportedly detained Nov. 13 in Yalova by Turkish police, after work between Turkey’s intelligence service and the CIA. The suspected was subsequently deported to Jordan on Nov. 24, according to the report, before being transferred to the United States on suspicion of his involvement in a deadly attack on Washington’s consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, in which U.S. Envoy to Libya Chris Stevens was killed.

Azzouz, 48, was named as an “al-Qaeda operative and trainer skilled in bomb-making” by the U.S. State Department and listed on the U.S. list of 10 most dangerous global terrorists.

The father of four came to Britain from Libya in 1994 and was arrested in a raid at his home in Manchester in May 2006. He was detained for 9.5 months before being released on bail, after which he traveled to Libya. After the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in May 2011, Azzouz met his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and was appointed as the chief operator of the organization in Libya.

Before the Nov. 13 raid in Turkey, Turkish police discovered that Azzouz entered Turkey with a fake passport bearing the name of Libyan citizen Awad Abdalla S. Ahmida. Azzouz was detained while leaving his house in Yalova, where his two laptop computers were also confiscated by Turkish police.

He is expected to be put on trial in the U.S.