Former CIA private security contractor Kris “Tanto” Paronto said on Wednesday that the sentencing of the mastermind of the 2012 attack on U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, was a “political sideshow.”
“The terrorist won because he got due process. What kind of … country gives due process to terrorists? They come under our rule of law,” Paronto told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton on “Rising.”
“We failed at the beginning, so this ending here it really means nothing to me, other than it’s just another political sideshow. It offended that we even had a trial for a terrorist. It was ridiculous,” he continued.
Ahmed Abu Khattala, who masterminded the deadly 2012 attacks, was sentenced by a federal judge last month to 22 years in prison.
The attacks resulted in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service officer Sean Smith, along with security contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
Stevens was the first U.S. diplomat to be killed while on the job in decades.
Federal prosecutors had expressed hope in court filings for a sentence that would help prevent future attacks on U.S. ambassadors.
“This fact alone, the first killing of a U.S. Ambassador while in the performance of his duties in nearly 40 years, makes this case a truly singular event and warrants imposition of the maximum sentence permissible under the law,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael DiLorenzo wrote.
Paronto expressed doubt on Wednesday that the military had learned how to better its response to attacks on U.S. personnel serving overseas.
“When you have politics that play into the leadership aspect of the [Department of Defense] or State Department, and you have politicians trying to make those calls that don’t have that on-the-ground, really, experience or they let politics overcome them and they forget what they learned when they were younger, no, I don’t,” he said.
— Julia Manchester
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.