Back in an October post laying out Abu Anas al-Libi’s challenge of the interrogation he underwent on a Navy ship, I wrote,
Meanwhile, the government is not providing al-Libi cancer treatment doctors at Duke said during the summer he needs to address liver cancer. Maybe the government is just hoping al-Libi will succumb to cancer before he can press these issues?
The WaPo just reported,
A suspected al-Qaeda terrorist died Friday night just days before he was slated to go on trial in New York on charges of helping plan the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings, his lawyer said.
Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer after U.S. commandos and FBI agents captured him in a 2013 raid outside his house in a suburb of Tripoli.
His lawyer, Bernard Kleinman, said his client’s condition had deteriorated significantly in the last month. Kleinman said Ruqai, 50, died at a hospital in the New York area.
Welp, if having al-Libi die before trial was the idea, Mission Accomplished.
Update: Here’s al-Libi’s lawyer’s letter from October raising concerns about delays in his cancer treatment.
At the same time MIr. al Liby had been scheduled to have a surgical procedure done (a bland arterial embolization) designed to hopefully retard the spread of his liver cancel’. This procedure was scheduled for Duke Cancel’ Center the beginning of August. To date it has not been done. It is now two and one-half months later and he is still waiting – with no explanation whatsoever. This, with all due respect, is inexcusable. This surgical procedure, recommended by Dr. White, an oncological surgeon at Duke Cancel’ Center (and endorsed by all of the other physicians), needs to be done with all deliberate speed.