Suspected al-Qaeda agent facing trial in US dies in custody

A suspected operative for al-Qaeda who was captured by US commandos in Libya in 2013 and brought to New York to face trial has died in custody after complications from longstanding medical problems, prosecutors said.

Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai (50), who had liver cancer, was taken to a hospital from the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he was being held pending a trial that was to begin in Manhattan a week from Monday.

Mr al-Ruqai’s lawyer, Bernard V Kleinman, said that in a bedside meeting at the hospital on Wednesday, his client had been lucid.

“He recognised the seriousness of his condition,” Mr Kleinman said. Over the next two days, he said, Mr al-Ruqai was placed on a ventilator and had his blood pressure medication increased to a maximum dosage. He was given CPR when his heart ultimately failed in an unsuccessful effort to revive him. Mr Kleinman said representatives of the Libyan embassy were present, as was an imam, who, after Mr al-Ruqai died, turned his body to face Mecca.

Mr al-Ruqai had faced trial on charges of conspiring with Osama bin Laden in al-Qaeda's nearly simultaneous 1998 bombings of two US embassies in East Africa, which killed 224 people, as well as in plots to attack US forces in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia.

Terrorism manual

He was perhaps best known for the extraordinary piece of evidence, a terrorism manual, found at his residence in Manchester by authorities investigating the embassy attacks.

The manual – a detailed treatise of how to carry out terrorist missions and what to do if caught – has been introduced by prosecutors against terrorist defendants in trial after trial. – (New York Times)