Unseen footage puts Benghazi attack suspect at scene of crime that killed 4 Americans at US embassy

Damning footage not seen outside a courtroom puts alleged killer and conspirator Zubayar Al-Bakoush at the scene of the crime at the US embassy compound in Benghazi, Libya the day militants attacked the facility and killed four Americans. 

The footage, used as evidence in a related trial and obtained by The Post after Bakoush was brought to the US to face charges, shows him dressed in camouflage, standing outside the gate of the compound on Sept. 11, 2012 as a group of about 20 armed men breach the gate of the US Mission in Benghazi.

The feds charged him with murder and terror charges in an indictment unsealed Friday after extraditing him and bringing him to the US.

The newly unsealed indictment states that Bakoush, 58, and about 20 armed men violently breached the main gate of the US Mission at Benghazi, and that Bakoush entered the facility, conducted surveillance, and tried to get into staff vehicles.

Conspirators had AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. US Ambassador Chris Stevens, US security contractors Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty, and IT officer Sean Smith were killed in the attacks.

The Post obtained the video after Bakoush arrived at a Virginia airfield early Friday following a “transfer of custody.”

He didn’t enter a plea during a hearing later in the day.

Related Benghazi cases reveal what evidence the feds already have on him: video images of him armed in fatigues, banging on a car that got torched, and standing outside the base at the start of the attack. 

“He played a prominent role on the ground. His name came up quite a bit in the trial,” said attorney Matthew Peed, who represented Moustafa al-Imam, who was convicted on Benghazi conspiracy charges in 2019.

“The government’s witness at trial had known Bakoush since he was a teenager when they were in Scouts together,” he noted.

But Bakoush was no Boy Scout.

He was a commander and acted as the “tip of the spear” for the Benghazi attacks, the government said in related cases.

He was part of Ansar al-Sharia, a jihadist group that sought to impose Sharia law in Libya and took part in the attacks.

Peed’s client was sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2020 for his role in the attack, after being convicted of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and destroying property. 

A footnote in that case called Bakoush and another man, Ahmed Al-Fitori “two key leaders of the Mission attack” on the US diplomatic compound.

Al-Bakoush is charged in the murder of Stevens and three others.

Peed referenced Bakoush while defending his own client, a convenience store clerk who he said at trial was “keeping his head down, minding the store” in contrast to the “two other brigade commanders that we saw on the video.”

Bakoush also features in another case, that of Ahmed Salimfaraj Abukhatallah, who was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2024 for his role in the attack.

Abukhatallah was convicted of conspiracy terrorism charges and maliciously destroying and injuring dwellings, but was acquitted on murder charges.

There is an “undeniable connection” between the two men, prosecutors argued, since Bakoush was in Abukhatallah’s phone at the time of his arrest.

“The video shows him banging on a vehicle, messing with a vehicle,” US Attorney Michael DiLorenzo told the jury, according to a 2017 trial transcript.

“Moments after there is when you see [another suspect] Jamaica pouring the gas on it, clearly acting in concert, and then you see him outside of Villa B at 10:05, Zubayr Bakoush, with a weapon and acting in concert with the other attackers.”

The videos show “the defendant’s army … It shows that his army, his militia, his militia that operates outside the law, is the tip of the spear in this attack.”

Bakoush arrived at a Virginia airfield early Friday after a “transfer of custody.”

He didn’t enter a plea during a hearing later in the day.