Anas Al-Libi Arrives in US, Seriously Ill: Officials
Suspect in U.S. embassy bombings has hepatitis C, officials and family say.
Oct. 14, 2013 — -- Anas al-Libi, the alleged al Qaeda member snatched off the streets of Tripoli by an American special operations team, has been brought to the U.S. to face terrorism charges, but has been hospitalized due to a severe case of hepatitis C, U.S. officials told ABC News today.
Al-Libi, whose real name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, had been on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list for more than a decade for his alleged involvement in the dual bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 which claimed more than 200 lives, 12 of them American.
The U.S. Army's famed Delta Force grabbed al-Libi Oct. 5 in an early morning operation, according to a military source, as he was returning home from morning prayers in Tripoli, Libya. He was then whisked to a Navy ship in the Mediterranean, where security experts said he was likely questioned by the U.S. government's High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) for days before likely being turned over to the FBI for transport stateside.
Prosecutors said he was secretly spirited to the U.S. over the weekend. Two U.S. officials said the move was hastened because of al-Libi's health -- his illness described by one official as "severely acute last week."
Another official told ABC News he feared al-Libi would not live long enough to "see justice served in a courtroom."
Al-Libi's wife previously revealed her husband suffered from hepatitis C in media interviews.
Earlier today U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the government expects al-Libi to be "presented before a judicial officer" tomorrow.
READ: How U.S. Interrogators Could Make Anas Al-Libi Talk
"We know that Mr. [Anas] al-Libi planned and helped execute plots that killed hundreds of people, a whole lot of Americans, and we have strong evidence of that and he will be brought to justice," President Obama said last week, dodging a reporter's question about whether the snatch operation complied with international law.
Two days after al-Libi's capture, his wife told CNN her husband is innocent of the U.S. accusations and said he left al Qaeda two years before the embassy bombings.
The Associated Press first reported al-Libi's arrival in U.S. territory.
ABC News' Aaron Katersky, Mike Levine, and Lee Ferran contributed to this report.
