NEW YORK: A suspected Al Qaeda terrorist died on Friday night, just days before he was scheduled to go on trial in a federal court in New York.

Nazih Abdul Hamed al Ruqai, also known as Abu Anas al Liby, had liver cancer complications following surgery his wife and lawyers confirmed.

He was seized and transported to the US after an October 2013 raid in Tripoli, where he was living.

Liby’s wife, Um Abdullah, accused the US government of “kidnapping, mistreating and killing an innocent man”.

He was charged with helping to plan the 1998 bombings outside the US embassies in Tanza­nia and Kenya that killed 224 people. Among those killed in the bombings were 12 Amer­icans, including two CIA empl­oyees. Liby was seized in a US raid in Tripoli in October 2013

In a letter to the trial judge filed early Saturday, Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Ruqai, 50, “was taken from the Metropolitan Correctional Centre to a New York hospital due to sudden complications arising out of his long-standing medical problems.” Bharara said “his condition deteriorated rapidly.”

When Liby was picked up by US commandoes in Tripoli, US Secretary of State John Kerry was forced to defend the capture after Libya called on the US to explain the raid on its territory.

Many people in Libya were angry about what they said was a breach of the country’s sovereignty.

Liby was detained by US commandos on 5 October 2013 and interrogated on board a US warship before being handed over to FBI agents.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2015

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