United States v. Al-Imam
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Opinion
CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER, United States District Judge
On September 11 and 12, 2012, a group of Libyan militants attacked U.S. diplomatic and intelligence facilities in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans died in the attacks, including then-United States Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens. The United States alleges, in a seventeen-count superseding indictment, that Defendant Mustafa Muhammad Mufta Al-Imam participated in the attacks. Al-Imam has moved to dismiss all but one of the counts. He contends that most of the statutes under which he is charged do not apply to conduct undertaken outside of the United States; that he cannot be prosecuted for eleven of the counts because his capture violated international law; and that six counts must be dismissed because the offenses charged apply only to legally operated federal facilities, which he says excludes the facilities here.
Save for the illegal capture argument, the Court has previously considered and rejected each of Al-Imam's challenges in ruling on a motion to dismiss brought by one of his purported co-conspirators, Ahmed Abu Khatallah, who was convicted in November 2017 of three of the offenses with which Al-Imam is also charged. See Judgment, United States v. Ahmed Abu Khatallah, 14-cr-141, ECF No. 547. Recognizing this obstacle to dismissal, Al-Imam urges the Court to reconsider its prior *253analysis, particularly with respect to his extraterritorial challenge. But the Court finds no reason to depart from its conclusion in Abu Khatallah. It also finds Al-Imam's capture argument unavailing. Accordingly, and for the reasons that follow, the Court will deny Al-Imam's motion to dismiss with respect to all counts.
I. Background
Muammar Gaddafi seized power in Libya in 1969 and remained its leader until 2011, when a civil war broke out. Indictment ¶ 2. The war erupted in the Libyan coastal city of Benghazi, which was controlled by rebels and served as the base of operations for the rebel-led Transitional National Council ("TNC"). Id. On February 25, 2011, the U.S. Department of State evacuated American personnel from Libya and suspended its operations at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. Id. ¶ 3. Less than two months later, in April 2011, the State Department reestablished its presence in the country with the arrival in Benghazi of U.S. Special Envoy J. Christopher Stevens. Id. ¶ 4.
On July 15, 2011, the United States officially recognized the TNC as Libya's governing authority. Id. One month later, Gaddafi was ousted from power and killed. Id. In November 2011, the United States established a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, known as the U.S. Special Mission ("Mission"), where a contingent of State Department personnel were stationed. Id. ¶ 5. The United States established a second Benghazi facility, this one known as the Annex, where additional U.S. personnel were based. Id. ¶ 6.
In May 2012, the United States dispatched Stevens, now the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, to the Libyan capital of Tripoli. Id. ¶ 7. Ambassador Stevens traveled to Benghazi to visit the Mission compound on September 10, 2012. Id. Stationed at the compound and present during the Ambassador's visit were Information Management Officer Sean Patrick Smith; Assistant Regional Security Officers Scott Wickland and David Ubben; and Security Officers Tyrone Snowden Woods, Glen Anthony Doherty, and Mark Geist. See id. ¶¶ 13-18.
Around 9:45 p.m. on September 11, 2012, approximately twenty men-armed with assault rifles, handguns, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers-attacked the Mission. Id. ¶ 22. After breaching the facility, the attackers set fire to several buildings, causing the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith. Id. The remaining State Department personnel escaped to the Annex, which soon also came under attack, ending in mortar fire that killed Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Id.
Al-Imam was captured in Libya on or about October 29, 2017, during an operation by U.S. armed forces personnel. He was thereafter transported to the District of Columbia to stand trial. A federal grand jury on October 25, 2018 returned a seventeen-count superseding indictment. According to the indictment, the Mission and Annex attacks were carried out, at least in part, by members of the extremist group Ubaydah Ibn Al Jarrah ("UBJ"), whose commander was Abu Khatallah. Indictment ¶ 9. The government alleges that Al-Imam was a close associate of Abu Khatallah and was present for, helped orchestrate, and participated in the attacks. Id. ¶¶ 9-11. According to the indictment, Al-Imam entered the Mission at the direction of Abu Khatallah and took sensitive material, including material that identified the Annex by location and as the evacuation point for Department of State personnel. Id. ¶ 22; Opposition Mot. Dismiss ("Opp.") at 3. Al-Imam then assembled with Abu Khatallah and others to coordinate the attack on the Annex. Id.
*254The specific charges against Al-Imam are as follows: Count One - Conspiracy to Provide Material Support and Resources to Terrorists Resulting in Death, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339A ; Count Two - Providing Material Support and Resources to Terrorists Resulting in Death, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2339A and 2; Count Three - Killing of an Internationally Protected Person (Ambassador Stevens), in violation of
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CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER, United States District Judge
On September 11 and 12, 2012, a group of Libyan militants attacked U.S. diplomatic and intelligence facilities in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans died in the attacks, including then-United States Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens. The United States alleges, in a seventeen-count superseding indictment, that Defendant Mustafa Muhammad Mufta Al-Imam participated in the attacks. Al-Imam has moved to dismiss all but one of the counts. He contends that most of the statutes under which he is charged do not apply to conduct undertaken outside of the United States; that he cannot be prosecuted for eleven of the counts because his capture violated international law; and that six counts must be dismissed because the offenses charged apply only to legally operated federal facilities, which he says excludes the facilities here.
Save for the illegal capture argument, the Court has previously considered and rejected each of Al-Imam's challenges in ruling on a motion to dismiss brought by one of his purported co-conspirators, Ahmed Abu Khatallah, who was convicted in November 2017 of three of the offenses with which Al-Imam is also charged. See Judgment, United States v. Ahmed Abu Khatallah, 14-cr-141, ECF No. 547. Recognizing this obstacle to dismissal, Al-Imam urges the Court to reconsider its prior *253analysis, particularly with respect to his extraterritorial challenge. But the Court finds no reason to depart from its conclusion in Abu Khatallah. It also finds Al-Imam's capture argument unavailing. Accordingly, and for the reasons that follow, the Court will deny Al-Imam's motion to dismiss with respect to all counts.
I. Background
Muammar Gaddafi seized power in Libya in 1969 and remained its leader until 2011, when a civil war broke out. Indictment ¶ 2. The war erupted in the Libyan coastal city of Benghazi, which was controlled by rebels and served as the base of operations for the rebel-led Transitional National Council ("TNC"). Id. On February 25, 2011, the U.S. Department of State evacuated American personnel from Libya and suspended its operations at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. Id. ¶ 3. Less than two months later, in April 2011, the State Department reestablished its presence in the country with the arrival in Benghazi of U.S. Special Envoy J. Christopher Stevens. Id. ¶ 4.
On July 15, 2011, the United States officially recognized the TNC as Libya's governing authority. Id. One month later, Gaddafi was ousted from power and killed. Id. In November 2011, the United States established a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, known as the U.S. Special Mission ("Mission"), where a contingent of State Department personnel were stationed. Id. ¶ 5. The United States established a second Benghazi facility, this one known as the Annex, where additional U.S. personnel were based. Id. ¶ 6.
In May 2012, the United States dispatched Stevens, now the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, to the Libyan capital of Tripoli. Id. ¶ 7. Ambassador Stevens traveled to Benghazi to visit the Mission compound on September 10, 2012. Id. Stationed at the compound and present during the Ambassador's visit were Information Management Officer Sean Patrick Smith; Assistant Regional Security Officers Scott Wickland and David Ubben; and Security Officers Tyrone Snowden Woods, Glen Anthony Doherty, and Mark Geist. See id. ¶¶ 13-18.
Around 9:45 p.m. on September 11, 2012, approximately twenty men-armed with assault rifles, handguns, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers-attacked the Mission. Id. ¶ 22. After breaching the facility, the attackers set fire to several buildings, causing the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith. Id. The remaining State Department personnel escaped to the Annex, which soon also came under attack, ending in mortar fire that killed Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Id.
Al-Imam was captured in Libya on or about October 29, 2017, during an operation by U.S. armed forces personnel. He was thereafter transported to the District of Columbia to stand trial. A federal grand jury on October 25, 2018 returned a seventeen-count superseding indictment. According to the indictment, the Mission and Annex attacks were carried out, at least in part, by members of the extremist group Ubaydah Ibn Al Jarrah ("UBJ"), whose commander was Abu Khatallah. Indictment ¶ 9. The government alleges that Al-Imam was a close associate of Abu Khatallah and was present for, helped orchestrate, and participated in the attacks. Id. ¶¶ 9-11. According to the indictment, Al-Imam entered the Mission at the direction of Abu Khatallah and took sensitive material, including material that identified the Annex by location and as the evacuation point for Department of State personnel. Id. ¶ 22; Opposition Mot. Dismiss ("Opp.") at 3. Al-Imam then assembled with Abu Khatallah and others to coordinate the attack on the Annex. Id.
*254The specific charges against Al-Imam are as follows: Count One - Conspiracy to Provide Material Support and Resources to Terrorists Resulting in Death, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339A ; Count Two - Providing Material Support and Resources to Terrorists Resulting in Death, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2339A and 2; Count Three - Killing of an Internationally Protected Person (Ambassador Stevens), in violation of
Al-Imam moves to dismiss all but one count, arguing that most of the statutes under which he is charged do not apply extraterritorially, that his capture violated international law such that prosecution on some of the counts is precluded, and that the Mission and Annex facilities were not legally-operated federal facilities and thus fall outside the protection of federal law. The government opposes Al-Imam's motion. The Court held a hearing on the motion on February 15, 2019, and the issues are now ripe for the Court's resolution.
II. Legal Standard
A criminal defendant "may raise by pretrial motion any defense, objection, or request that the court can determine without a trial on the merits." Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(1). Pretrial motions may challenge "a defect in the indictment or information," as long as "the basis for the motion is then reasonably available and the motion can be determined without a trial on the merits." Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(3)(B). " 'Because a court's use[ ] [of] its supervisory power to dismiss an indictment ... directly encroaches upon the fundamental role of the grand jury,' dismissal is granted only in unusual circumstances." United States v. Ballestas,
III. Analysis
The Court begins with Al-Imam's contention that the federal laws he stands charged with violating do not apply extraterritorially, first recounting its analysis of the arguments in Abu Khatallah, which the parties repeat here, before moving to Al-Imam's *255critique that the Court's prior reasoning went astray. The Court will then tackle Al-Imam's arguments that his capture precludes the prosecution of certain counts, and that the purportedly unlawful operation of the Benghazi facilities bars the prosecution of other counts.
A. The Extraterritoriality of the Offenses Charged in Counts 1-2 and 4-17 1
Al-Imam advances extraterritoriality arguments identical to those considered and rejected by this Court in Abu Khatallah. Compare MTD at 11-25 with Mot. Dismiss for Lack of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ECF No. 91) at 4-21, United States v. Abu Khatallah, 14-cr-141. The government, for its part, responds just as it did in Abu Khatallah. Compare Opp. at 20-34 with Opp. Mot. Dismiss for Lack of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction, ECF No. 101, at 7-24, United States v. Abu Khatallah, 14-cr-141. Indeed, as both parties acknowledge, their submissions on these Counts are near-verbatim reproductions of the submissions in Abu Khatallah.2 Therefore, the Court reproduces its Abu Khatallah analysis here, though modified to address Al-Imam rather than Abu Khatallah and to exclude arguments appearing in Abu Khatallah's reply memorandum that Al-Imam does not advance here. United States v. Abu Khatallah,
1. Generally Applicable Principles of Extraterritoriality
The Supreme Court has repeatedly-and quite recently-insisted that "[w]hen a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none." Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.,
*256The presumption against extraterritoriality is a "canon of construction ... rather than a limit upon Congress's power to legislate." Morrison,
Aside from administrability and predictability concerns, the presumption against extraterritoriality is also rooted in ideas of institutional competence and the separation of powers. Its robust application "protect[s] against unintended clashes between our laws and those of other nations which could result in international discord." Kiobel,
So strong is the presumption, the Supreme Court has said, that geographically unbounded terms like "every" and "any" fail to rebut it. Kiobel,
The Supreme Court has slightly diluted the presumption's potency by conceding that it is "not ... a 'clear statement rule.' " Morrison,
2. Harmonizing the Apparent Civil/Criminal Divide
As detailed above, the modern Supreme Court has instructed lower courts to apply the presumption "in all cases." Morrison,
a. The Facts and Holding of United States v. Bowman
The defendants in Bowman had allegedly conspired to defraud the Emergency Fleet Corporation-all of whose stock was owned by the United States-on board a ship approaching Brazil. Bowman,
The Bowman Court took a starkly different approach, however. It began its analysis by observing that "the necessary locus [of proscribed activity], when not specially defined, depends upon the purpose of Congress as evinced by the description and nature of the crime." Id. at 97,
But a different rule of construction applies to "criminal statutes which are, as a class, not logically dependent on their locality for the Government's jurisdiction, but are enacted because of the right of the Government to defend itself against obstruction, or fraud wherever perpetrated."
The Bowman Court held that the charged crime fell comfortably within this second category. The statute had been amended in 1918 to encompass false claims harmful to corporations in which the United States owned stock.
Bowman also supplemented its holding (if only in dictum) with a list of six other federal crimes whose nature commanded an inference of extraterritorial application. Because Bowman has been entirely absent from the Supreme Court's modern extraterritoriality decisions, these six crimes are important data points for understanding Bowman's underlying rationale. The Court noted that all six appeared in a chapter of the U.S. Code entitled "Offenses against the operations of the Government,"
(1) A consul's knowingly certifying a false invoice. "Clearly the locus of this crime as intended by Congress *259is in a foreign country...."Id. at 99 ,43 S.Ct. 39 .
(2) Forging or altering a ship's papers. "The natural inference from the character of the offense is that the sea would be a probable place for its commission."Id.
(3) Enticing desertions from the naval service. Congress must have "intend[ed] by this to include such enticing done aboard ship on the high seas or in a foreign port, where it would be most likely to be done."Id.
(4) Bribing an officer of the U.S. civil, military, or naval service to violate his duty or to aid in committing a fraud on the United States. The Court concluded that it would "hardly [be] reasonable to construe this not to include offenses" directed at consuls, ambassadors, and military officers "in a foreign country or on the high seas."Id.
(5) Defrauding the United States in the disposition of property captured as prize. "This would naturally often occur at sea, and Congress could not have meant to confine it to the land of the United States."Id.
(6) Stealing or embezzling property of the United States furnished or intended to be used for military or naval service. "It would hardly be reasonable to hold that" Congress did not intend to punish offenses against U.S. military property located "in foreign countries, in foreign ports or on the high seas."Id. at 100 ,43 S.Ct. 39 .
In sum, for statutes whose geographic reach is ambiguous, satisfying Bowman first requires proof that a criminal offense directly harms the U.S. Government. Bowman also suggested that the presumption against extraterritoriality cannot be rebutted inferentially unless the enacting Congress very likely envisioned, and can be assumed to have authorized, a considerable number of extraterritorial applications. Yet whether Bowman's preconditions are satisfied is hardly a mechanical inquiry. Bowman left open the key question of how many foreseeable extraterritorial applications are necessary to warrant the inference that Congress "clearly" intended to allow prosecutions for acts occurring overseas. Its treatment of two statutory examples suggested that the number of expected extraterritorial offenses must outweigh domestic ones-that the former must be "probable" or "most likely."
b. The D.C. Circuit's Application of Bowman : United States v. Delgado-Garcia
Along with other lower courts, the D.C. Circuit has sought to reconcile modern extraterritoriality doctrine's across-the-board, rule-like rigor with the more flexible and individualized inquiry required in criminal cases by Bowman. Its reading of Bowman precludes two possible approaches to this case: (1) to proceed as if the Supreme Court has overruled Bowman sub silentio and apply only the restrictive test outlined in Aramco, Morrison, and Kiobel; or (2) to assume that federal crimes designed to prevent harm to the U.S. Government necessarily satisfy Bowman (and so apply extraterritorially) absent a clear indication to the contrary.
*260The defendants in United States v. Delgado-Garcia,
According to Delgado-Garcia, the generally worded statute at issue in Bowman applied abroad "because the Emergency Fleet Corporation ... 'was expected to engage in, and did engage in, a most extensive ocean transportation business.' " Delgado-Garcia,
The Government's reading of Bowman echoes Judge Rogers's dissenting opinion in Delgado-Garcia. She understood Bowman to mean that when Congress "protect[s] the United States government from harm," it generally must be assumed to have done so "irrespective of [the harm's] origin."
Delgado-Garcia held that both § 1324(a) crimes charged in the indictment met this standard (and thus applied extraterritorially). After explaining that the statute satisfied Bowman's "harm" prong because it sought to protect the integrity of U.S. borders,
In this Circuit, then, Bowman is satisfied when (1) a federal criminal offense directly harms the U.S. Government, and (2) enough foreseeable overseas applications existed at the time of a statute's enactment (or most recent amendment) to warrant the inference that Congress both contemplated and authorized prosecutions for extraterritorial acts. Delgado-Garcia's "locus" inquiry specifically asks whether a statute "ha[s] many obvious extraterritorial applications,"
3. Al-Imam's Statutory Challenges
Al-Imam contends that five of the statutes under which he is charged do not apply extraterritorially.
a.
Counts Four through Six charge Al-Imam with murder in violation of
Whoever kills or attempts to kill any officer or employee of the United States or of any agency in any branch of the United States Government (including any member of the uniformed services) while such officer or employee is engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties, or any person assisting such an officer or employee in the performance of such duties or on account of that assistance, shall be punished-
(1) in the case of murder, as provided under section 1111 ;
(2) in the case of manslaughter, as provided under section 1112; or
(3) in the case of attempted murder or manslaughter, as provided in section 1113.
*262Section 1114 does not explicitly reference extraterritorial application, so such prosecutions must be justified by Bowman, if at all. The Court does not doubt-nor does Al-Imam contest-that § 1114 targets a form of harm suffered directly by the U.S. Government. Under Delgado-Garcia, then, just one question remains: Did § 1114"have many obvious extraterritorial applications" when it was enacted (or most recently amended)?
Cautious of its institutional limitations in resolving an issue of this nature, the Court answers affirmatively. The parties have not informed the Court as to when § 1114 was either originally enacted or last amended. That law appears to have remained in its current form since being amended as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, § 727(a),
Here, the Court is satisfied that § 1114"ha[d] many obvious extraterritorial applications" when the law was last amended in 1996-enough to have put Congress on notice of the issue of extraterritoriality and to permit an inference under Bowman that the law was intended to reach conduct undertaken outside the United States. It is widely known that then, as now, large numbers of U.S. diplomats and Foreign Service Officers, military servicemembers, members of the intelligence community, and other government personnel served the United States's interests abroad. Executive and legislative officials (and their staff) also frequently traveled-and obviously still do-outside the United States in the course of performing their official duties. See also United States v. Al Kassar,
Al-Imam nonetheless argues that a comparison between § 1114 and § 1116, which criminalizes the murder of internationally protected persons, reveals that Congress did not intend for § 1114 to apply extraterritorially. MTD at 12-13. Both statutes were amended in 1996; whereas § 1116 broadened the "internationally protected person" category to reach "any other representative, officer, employee, or agent of *263the United States Government," § 1114 remained generally worded and geographically ambiguous. Id. at 12. As a result, Al-Imam claims, § 1116's amendment "would have been unnecessary if Congress had intended § 1114 to apply to the extraterritorial killing of all [U.S.] officers and employees." Id. at 5-6. The Court is not persuaded. To qualify as an internationally protected person, one must be, "at the time and place concerned[,] ... entitled pursuant to international law to special protection against attack."
Other statutes not cited by Al-Imam lend some credence to his position that "when Congress intend[s] a homicide statute to apply extraterritorially, it specifically state[s] so." MTD at 12. One of them,
The D.C. Circuit's recent refusal to permit a Bivens cause of action to remedy harm inflicted extraterritorially does not change the Court's analysis. In Meshal v. Higgenbotham,
*264For the foregoing reasons, the Court will deny Al-Imam's motion as to Counts Four through Nine, which charge him with violating
b.
Counts Ten through Thirteen charge Al-Imam with violating
(c) A person who kills any person ... in the course of an attack on a Federal facility involving the use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be punished as provided [elsewhere].
* * *
(g) As used in this section:
(1) The term "Federal facility" means a building or part thereof owned or leased by the Federal Government, where Federal employees are regularly present for the purpose of performing their official duties.
Because § 930 is silent on its geographic reach, Bowman must again guide the Court's extraterritoriality analysis. Bowman's "harm" test is clearly satisfied here-the act of killing someone in the course of an attack on a federal facility directly harms the U.S. Government. The remaining question is whether § 930(c) offenses are "not logically dependent on their locality," meaning that the provision had "many obvious extraterritorial applications" when it was enacted (or most recently amended). Delgado-Garcia,
Al-Imam points out that § 930(c) was added to
Yet a criminal statute whose legislative history and neighboring provisions are bereft of foreign references may still apply extraterritorially if Bowman's "harm" and "locus" elements (as understood by Delgado-Garcia ) are both satisfied. Again, the Government has not provided a concrete figure for or independently substantiated how many federal facilities exist outside the United States. But it has assured the Court that they number in the "hundreds." Opp. at 25. Al-Imam does not contest this approximation. Cf. Bin Laden,
c.
Counts Fourteen and Fifteen charge Al-Imam with violating
(f)(1) Whoever maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy, by means of fire or an explosive, any building, vehicle, or other personal or real property in whole or in part owned or possessed by, or leased to, the United States, or any department or agency thereof, or any institution or organization receiving Federal financial assistance, shall be imprisoned for not less than 5 years and not more than 20 years, fined under this title, or both.
* * *
(3) Whoever engages in conduct prohibited by this subsection, and as a result of such conduct directly or proximately causes the death of any person, including any public safety officer performing [his] duties, shall be subject to the death penalty, or imprisoned for not less than 20 years or for life, fined under this title, or both.
As with § 1114 and § 930(c), § 844(f) contains no provision explicitly authorizing extraterritorial use. The Court will therefore analyze § 844(f)'s geographic reach under the Bowman framework. Damaging or destroying U.S. property unquestionably harms the U.S. Government. So again, the remaining issue is whether § 844(f) had "many obvious extraterritorial applications" at the time of its enactment or most recent amendment. Delgado-Garcia,
The Court answers in the affirmative. Statutory "Federal facilities"-buildings owned or leased by the U.S. Government, where federal employees are regularly present for the purpose of performing their official duties-are but a subset of "personal or real property in whole or in part owned or possessed by, or leased to, the United States, or any department or agency thereof."
Al-Imam insists that § 844(f)"does not have an international focus." MTD at 16. For all the Court can tell, he is correct. Al-Imam explains that § 844(f) was "indisputably passed to expand federal authority over bombings of domestic properties during the Vietnam War." Reply at 10. The Government offers no reason to doubt this account of the historical forces driving *266§ 844's passage. But Al-Imam misunderstands the import of Delgado-Garcia's application of Bowman. To be sure, Delgado-Garcia characterized § 1324(a)'s border-control provisions as "fundamentally international ... in focus and effect." Delgado-Garcia,
Nor is it material that § 844(f) prohibits the damaging or destruction of "any institution or organization receiving Federal financial assistance," the great majority of which are presumably located domestically. Section 844 clearly targets a vast range of destructive behavior undertaken within the territorial United States. But its independently operative provisions that protect U.S. property could foreseeably be applied abroad in a great number of situations; this must have been known when the statute was modified in 2002, as well. As a result, the Court will deny Al-Imam's motion as to Counts Fourteen and Fifteen.
d. 18 U.S.C. § 2339A : Providing Material Support and Resources to Terrorists Resulting in Death (and Conspiring to Do the Same)
Count One charges Al-Imam with conspiring to violate 18 U.S.C. § 2339A ("the material-support statute"), and Count Two charges him with a substantive violation of that statute. As with each of the offenses discussed above, § 2339A does not explicitly authorize extraterritorial prosecutions. Section 2339A provides, in relevant part (with only potentially applicable predicate offenses listed below):
(a) Offense. Whoever provides material support or resources or conceals or disguises the nature, location, source, or ownership of material support or resources, knowing or intending that they are to be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, a violation of section ... 844(f) ..., 930(c), ... 1114, 1116, ... [or] 1363, ... or in preparation for, or in carrying out, the concealment of an escape from the commission of any such violation, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both, and, if the death of any person results, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
Section 1116 (corresponding to Count Three) explicitly authorizes extraterritorial prosecutions; the other four offenses (corresponding to Counts Four through Seventeen) do not. Al-Imam therefore moves to dismiss Counts One and Two insofar as they charge him with providing (or conspiring to provide) material support for violations of §§ 844(f), 930(c), 1114, and 1363.
Al-Imam and the Government agree that § 2339A is an ancillary crime that applies extraterritorially to the extent that an associated substantive offense does. Deciding whether to dismiss an ancillary offense for lack of extraterritoriality requires no new analysis when the geographic reach of any predicate crimes has already been determined. The Court therefore incorporates by reference its earlier holdings and denies Al-Imam's motion as to Counts One and Two. The Government may continue to proceed under § 2339A insofar as it charges Al-Imam with providing (or conspiring to provide) material support *267for a violation of §§ 844(f), 930(c), 1114, or 1116.
e.
In the Court's initial motion-to-dismiss ruling in Abu Khatallah, the Court reserved judgment on the extraterritorial application of § 1363 issue and ordered supplemental briefing. After reviewing the parties' submissions, the Court concluded that the alleged conduct, if proved, occurred within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States ("SMTJ") as defined in
Congress defined two distinct crimes in
Al-Imam disagrees with this analysis of the statute. As he sees it, "the enhanced form of § 1363 involves 'jeopardy' to the life of a person, without thereby being transformed into a crime against a person." Reply at 19. Rather, Al-Imam contends that § 1363 defines a single property crime concerned with buildings or property within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction. This position is untenable, however, in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey,
As a threshold matter, the Court finds that the government is not legally precluded from presenting evidence under
To prove that the offense was "committed ... against a national of the United States" under § 7(9), the government seeks to show, inter alia , that Al-Imam "placed the lives of United States nationals in danger" as a result of his conduct. Indictment Count Sixteen ¶ 2;
Al-Imam's objections on this point are unavailing.9 In his view, he has not been charged with committing a crime against a U.S. national-or any person, for that matter-because § 1363 simply defines a property crime that can be committed only ..., if there has been damage, or the intent to damage, a building," and which has the "unambiguous statutory purpose" of protecting "[b]uildings or property within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction." Def's Suppl. Br., Abu Khatallah, 14-cr-141 ("Abu Khatallah's Suppl. Br."), ECF No. 141, at 10. Yet the government has charged Al-Imam with a crime that includes as one of its elements the endangerment of human life and that carries a maximum penalty fifteen years greater than when no life is placed in jeopardy. That crime is most assuredly concerned with protecting people, not just buildings or property.
*269In addition, Al-Imam claims, "[p]lacing a life in jeopardy is not an offense against a person under federal law. The word 'offense' necessarily means a chargeable offense under U.S. federal law; if an 'offense' against a U.S. national could be any conceivable offense-criminal or otherwise- § 7(9) would be rendered meaningless."
Lastly, Al-Imam argues that when Congress placed within the SMTJ "offenses committed ... against a national of the United States,"
Al-Imam counters that this interpretation leads to "the absurd conclusion that ... the government would have jurisdiction to prosecute ... even when the perpetrator was not aware that a U.S. person was present and a life could be endangered." Abu Khatallah's Suppl. Br. at 12. How can it be, Al-Imam asks, that "[w]hether a building is within special territorial jurisdiction" is "wholly contingent upon the arbitrary presence of a U.S. person and the degree of risk posed to that person at the time of the injury to the building"?
This understanding is consistent with the well-established principle that courts need not infer an unwritten mens rea element with respect to factual circumstances that are "sufficient to confer jurisdiction on the federal courts." United States v. Feola,
B. Al-Imam's Critique of the Court's Extraterritoriality Analysis in Abu Khatallah
As the foregoing demonstrates, this Court's conclusion that the federal laws at issue, save for
1. The Importance of the Defendant's Citizenship
The Court's first misstep, according to Al-Imam, was failing to appreciate the centrality of the defendant's citizenship to the Supreme Court's decision in Bowman. MTD at 5. Al-Imam explains that, because the defendants in that case, unlike here, were American citizens, Bowman does not control this case. Instead, he insists all Bowman can teach is that "satisfying [its standard] is one way of clearly-indicating a statute's extraterritorial reach over U.S. citizens. "
Al-Imam reads too much into the citizenship distinction. While the distinction means Bowman does not by itself dictate the extraterritoriality of the statutes under which Al-Imam is charged-which it never could in any event, given that the statutes at issue are also different-it does not seriously diminish Bowman's application to this case. Any argument to the contrary appears foreclosed by the D.C. Circuit's decision in Delgado-Garcia. There, the court acknowledged the "differences" between the case before it and Bowman, including the nationality of the defendants, but concluded that they "do not lessen Bowman's force as applied to this case."
Al-Imam's attempt to avoid this conclusion is unavailing. Al-Imam seems to suggest that it was permissible for Delgado-Garcia to use Bowman as persuasive authority despite the citizenship distinction because Delgado-Garcia"involved a prohibition on importing immigrants that is patently concerned with foreign conduct," but that it would be improper for the Court to rely on Bowman here because the statutes at issue are not so obviously focused on foreign conduct. Reply at 5; see MTD at 9 (contending the citizenship issue mattered less because the court was "interpreting [a] clearly-internationally-focused statute"). But whether Bowman's reasoning can be applied to cases involving different types of harm is a separate question from whether it can be applied to cases involving foreign nationals. Delgado-Garcia made this abundantly clear. There, the court identified two separate distinctions from Bowman: that it involved (1) "aliens" (as opposed to American citizens) and (2) "immigration offenses" (as opposed to fraud offenses). Delgado-Garcia,
To the extent Al-Imam contends that Delgado-Garcia misapplied Bowman by giving too little weight to the defendant's citizenship, that is an argument for the Circuit, not this Court. Nevertheless, his *272critique strikes the Court as misguided. As Al-Imam admits, the Bowman Court's use of the word "especially" with regard to the American defendants does not necessarily indicate an intent to limit its extraterritoriality reasoning to American citizens. MTD at 6; see also id. at 7 ("That is not to say that Bowman necessarily would have been decided differently had the defendants been foreign[.]"). Indeed, there can be no argument that the Court in Bowman expressly limited its reasoning to cases involving American citizens. United States v. Ayesh,
Moreover, as the government notes, there are clues in Bowman that suggest the Court would have reached the same conclusion regardless of the defendants' citizenship. Opp. at 6-7. First, even as the Bowman Court said it was "especially" confident of its ruling as applied to American defendants,
*2732. What is Required by the Bowman"Locus" Inquiry
That brings us to Al-Imam's second criticism of the Court's Abu Khatallah decision: misapplying Bowman and Delgado-Garcia by adopting a too-permissive locus test. Recall that in Bowman, the Supreme Court explained that if Congress wanted a statute to apply extraterritorially, "it is natural for Congress to say so in the statute," and that courts should not imply such an intent when Congress does not.
Al-Imam identifies two problems with the Court's explanation of the Bowman locus inquiry. First, he says Delgado-Garcia never intended the "many obvious extraterritorial applications" standard to supplant or even modify Bowman's "probable place" standard; and second, regardless whether Delgado-Garcia's "many applications" formulation was intended as a gloss on Bowman, Al-Imam stresses that Delgado-Garcia never said that a statute having many obvious extraterritorial applications would satisfy the locus prong in every case, only that it was necessary to the result in that specific case. See MTD at 7-10.
Start with Al-Imam's first point-that this Court misunderstood Delgado-Garcia as offering a clarification on what Bowman requires. His basic contention is that Delgado-Garcia's discussion of Bowman must be viewed in light of how the former treated the latter, which was as additional support *274for its conclusion, rather than as its decisional framework. Id. at 8 ("[T]he court in Delgado-Garcia was not applying Bowman as a precedential framework...."); see Delgado-Garcia,
Al-Imam's argument is creative but ultimately unpersuasive. To start, his attempt to downplay Bowman's significance to the decision in Delgado-Garcia does not withstand closer inspection. At the conclusion of the majority's opinion in Delgado-Garcia, it singled out "the same textual evidence used by the Supreme Court in Bowman and § 1324(a)'s international focus" as the "two reasons" supporting its decision that the statute applied extraterritorially.
But regardless of the role Bowman played in the Delgado-Garcia decision, Al-Imam fails to convince the Court that the latter's various "many" formulations should not guide the Bowman locus inquiry. As an initial matter, the D.C. Circuit offered these formulations in discussing what was necessary to satisfy Bowman. Most tellingly, when the dissent tried to distinguish Bowman on the basis that the cases involved different types of harm, the majority responded that "[t]he border-control statutes at issue here are 'not logically dependent on their locality' in the same sense that the fraud offense against the United States was not in Bowman: they have many obvious extraterritorial applications." Delgado-Garcia,
To be sure, if Al-Imam could show that these formulations were somehow inconsistent with Bowman, then the Court might conclude it was mistaken to make use of them. But he cannot show as much, and does not seriously attempt to, beyond his (unpersuasive) suggestion that the D.C. Circuit may not have "pa[id] close attention to the distinction in its language between 'probable' applications abroad and 'many' such applications." MTD at 9. In any event, far from being inconsistent with Bowman, Delgado-Garcia's "many obvious extraterritorial applications" and related "much" and "often" phrasings seem largely in keeping with the Supreme Court's decision. While Bowman did use "probable place" in discussing one particular offense (forging a ship's papers) and "most likely" in discussing another (enticing desertions), it said that another offense "would naturally often occur at sea," which was enough to show that Congress did not want "to confine it to the land of the United States."
We cannot suppose that when Congress enacted the statute or amended it, it did not have in mind that a wide field for such frauds upon the government was in private and public vessels of the United States on the high seas and in foreign ports and beyond the land jurisdiction of the United States, and therefore intended to include them in the section.
Al-Imam counters that Bowman's use of "wide field" must be understood in context. He says that the Court used that phrase "in a sentence that specifically was about frauds against the Emergency Fleet Corporation," Hr'g Tr. (Rough) 38:20-21, which the Court noted would "engage in [ ] a most extensive ocean transportation business," and which Congress's 1918 amendment seemed designed to protect, Bowman,
The long and short of this discussion? It would misread Bowman to give priority to its "probable place" statement, as Al-Imam urges, and Delgado-Garcia's "many obvious extraterritorial applications" standard is in fact fully consistent with Bowman. See Opp. at 12 (arguing that Delgado-Garcia's "many" and "much" phrasings "dovetail[ ] with Bowman's analysis of federal offenses that 'naturally often occur' overseas or where there was a 'wide field' for the commission of the offense overseas").
Even so, this particular dispute may be a tempest in a teapot, especially in light of Al-Imam's representations at the hearing. While the Court grants there could be a substantive difference between a "probable place" standard and a "many applications" standard, that would be true only if the word "probable" is read to mean "more likely than not," which is at least one reasonable interpretation of the term. But defense counsel at the hearing disclaimed any argument to that effect. Analogizing to the standard courts apply to
That leaves Al-Imam's second criticism of the Court's analysis of Bowman's locus test. Aside from the issue of how Delgado-Garcia employed Bowman in its analysis, and regardless whether Delgado-Garcia intended its "many" formulations to guide the application of Bowman in this Circuit, Al-Imam contends this Court erred by making the "many obvious extraterritorial applications" a sufficient rather than necessary condition for satisfying the Bowman locus inquiry. MTD at 7 (arguing that the Delgado-Garcia"many" formulations "reflected what was necessary, but not sufficient, to establish the extraterritoriality of statutes."). Or, as Al-Imam puts it in his reply: "these cases must be read as a whole in light of the facts before them, rather than parsed for specific language into a 'test' the cases did not formulate themselves." Reply at 1. This argument parallels the one Al-Imam made in regard to the citizenship distinction: just as he argued that the citizenship distinction did not matter in Delgado-Garcia because the statute was so clearly focused on international conduct, he argues that a statute having "many" extraterritorial applications was sufficient in Delgado-Garcia only because other contextual factors also made clear that the statute was intended to guard against international misconduct.
Al-Imam is correct that Delgado-Garcia's determination that the immigration statute at issue applied extraterritorially *277did not turn only on the fact that the statute would have many extraterritorial applications. Rather, the court noted other "contextual feature[s]" of § 1324(a), including that the statute protected U.S. borders and was "international in focus."
A closer look at Delgado-Garcia's explication of Bowman, and at Bowman itself, confirms that this Court was correct to center the locus inquiry on a statute's extraterritorial applications, not on whether it had a domestic or international "focus." Discussing Bowman, Delgado-Garcia noted that "[f]raud against the United States does not necessarily concern the national security and foreign affairs of the United States" and that "there is no obvious reason why frauds against the United States, simpliciter, would occur overseas."
At any rate, the "test" this Court allegedly set forth in Abu Khatallah-which the Court believes was commanded by Delgado-Garcia and Bowman-did not exclude the other "contextual features" that Delgado-Garcia highlighted in its extraterritoriality analysis. To the contrary, it incorporated them. After outlining the two-part *278extraterritoriality analysis, the Court continued:
Delgado-Garcia's "locus" inquiry specifically asks whether a statute "ha[s] many obvious extraterritorial applications,"id. at 1347 , or whether offenders "will often be outside the United States,"id. As long as such a likelihood existed when the statute was passed-whether because of the nature of the offense (as in Delgado-Garcia ), contingent facts about the United States's presence abroad, or some combination thereof-courts may properly infer a congressional intent to permit extraterritorial uses.
Abu Khatallah,
In sum, then, the Court rejects Al-Imam's request for the Court to reconsider its extraterritoriality analysis in Abu Khatallah. And because Al-Imam's extraterritoriality arguments, beyond the additional ones the Court has just rejected, mirror Abu Khatallah's, the Court reaches the same result: each of the statutes under which Al-Imam is charged apply to extraterritorial conduct. His motion to dismiss those charges for lack of jurisdiction is therefore denied.
C. Capture and International Law
Al-Imam presses one other argument for dismissal that his alleged co-conspirator, Abu Khatallah, did not: that the government cannot prosecute him for certain offenses-namely Counts Three, Ten through Seventeen, and parts of Counts One and Two-covered by extradition treaties that the government violated through his capture. MTD at 25-28. Two Supreme Court cases, Ker v. Illinois,
*279United States v. Rezaq,
The United States does not have a bilateral extradition treaty with Libya. Al-Imam nevertheless contends that his abduction in Libya violated the "prosecute or extradite" regime established by three multilateral conventions-the Charter of the United Nations ("U.N. Charter"), the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, Including Diplomatic Agents ("IPP Convention"), and the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings ("Terrorism Convention")-that together require signatories to either extradite defendants like Al-Imam or prosecute them domestically. MTD at 26. Forcible abduction, Al-Imam says, is not an option.
The Court first will try to explain Al-Imam's theory. Seemingly admitting that the IPP Convention and Terrorism Convention do not by their own express terms bar extraterritorial forcible abductions, Al-Imam argues instead that the relationship between the conventions and the U.N. Charter accomplishes as much. In his words:
By entering the U.N. Charter, signatory nations agreed in principle to give up their power to violate the territorial integrity of another nation except under certain conditions. And by entering into the "extradite or prosecute" conventions-both of which begin with express references to the U.N. Charter, and both of which state that they may form the legal basis for an extradition request-the United States extracted promises from signatory nations to "extradite or prosecute" persons found in their territory suspected of crimes of terrorism or against internationally-protected persons, in exchange for adherence to and promotion of the values found in the U.N. Charter.
MTD at 26. Put simply: the conventions require signatories to either extradite international terrorists or to prosecute them themselves, and the U.N. Charter, which signatories to the conventions effectively adopted, prohibits forcible abductions. This functions, according to Al-Imam, just like a "bilateral extradition treaty [that] expressly forbid[s] forcible abductions, because they are prohibited by the U.N. Charter as incorporated and reflected in the IPP and Terrorism Conventions." Id. at 27.
Al-Imam clarifies that he is not asking the Court to conclude that the U.N. Charter is self-executing or creates privately enforceable rights. He stresses that he is "not asking the Court to dismiss any charges based on a violation of the U.N. Charter per se ," but rather "is simply invoking the rule in Alvarez-Machain,
The government responds that Alvarez-Machain compels a result in its favor. In that case, the U.S. government orchestrated the abduction of a Mexican citizen who participated in a kidnapping and murder of a DEA agent in Mexico. Alvarez-Machain,
The Court also rejected the defendant's argument that, even if the treaty lacked an express prohibition on forcible abductions, the Court should imply a term to that effect. Similar to Al-Imam's argument here, he argued that the treaty should be "interpreted against the backdrop of customary international law," including reference to the U.N. Charter, which "so clearly prohibit[s]" forcible abductions "that there was no reason to include such a clause in the treaty itself."
Al-Imam nevertheless insists that one key distinction wriggles this case free from Alvarez-Machain's grasp. There, the defendant asked the Court to imply a no-abduction *281term into the U.S.-Mexico treaty by reading the treaty "against the backdrop of customary international law," as reflected by, among other things, the U.N. Charter.
The Court disagrees. To start, it is unclear whether the conventions' references to the U.N. Charter suffice to "incorporate" the Charter, such that violations of the Charter ipso facto constitute violations of the conventions. See id.; see also Reply at 12 (discussing conventions' use of phrases like "having in mind the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United States"). Although Al-Imam admits that the IPP's "incorporation of territorial sovereignty" is "opaque," id., he contends that the Terrorism Convention is perfectly explicit on this point, noting one provision discussing the "territorial integrity of States" and another assuring that the Convention's dictates do not conflict with "the Charter of the United Nations and international humanitarian law." Id. at 13. Even so, the Court seriously doubts the proposition that these statements are enough to make a violation of the U.N. Charter, or specific provisions of it, a violation of the Conventions.
But the Court need not resolve that doubt. For even if the Charter were incorporated into the IPP and Terrorism Conventions, that distinction does not remove this case from Alvarez-Machain's orbit. The Court in Alvarez-Machain did not, as Al-Imam seems to suggest, reject the defendant's argument about "customary international law" and the U.N. Charter simply because it was not explicitly incorporated into the bilateral extradition treaty. To the contrary, it rejected that argument for the reason highlighted above: the "general principle of international law that one government may not exercise its police power in the territory of another state" did not "relate[ ] to the practice of nations in relation to extradition treaties." Alvarez-Machain,
Al-Imam in reply offers one other distinction between this case and Alvarez-Machain. He notes that the IPP and Terrorism Conventions, unlike the U.S.-Mexico treaty, contain arbitration provisions binding signatories to handle disputes that arise under the conventions. Reply at 16-17 ("Obviously, it would make no sense for two parties to contract to a binding arbitration process, but permit that process to be subverted by the simple expedient of allowing one party to invade the other and capture the subjects of the arbitration."). But this is little more than a variant of the argument, rejected by the Court in Alvarez-Machain, that an extradition treaty's purpose would be frustrated if a signatory to the treaty could use means other than extradition to subject a foreign national to trial. See
For all these reasons, the Court concludes that Alvarez-Machain controls and forecloses Al-Imam's Ker - Frisbie argument. Accordingly, the Court will deny his motion to dismiss Counts Three, Ten through Seventeen, and parts of Counts One and Two on that basis.
D. Federal Facilities
Al-Imam's final argument is identical to one considered and rejected by the Court in Abu Khatallah-that Counts Ten through Fifteen must be dismissed because the Mission and Annex were not lawfully operated federal facilities. Compare MTD at 28-31 with Mot. Dismiss Counts Ten Through Fifteen, ECF No. 90, Abu Khatallah, 14-cr-141. Given no reason to revise its reasoning in Abu Khatallah, the Court adopts it here in slightly modified form.
Al-Imam argues that the Mission and Annex were neither "federal facilities" nor "U.S. Property" for purposes of those statutes because they were not lawfully owned or leased under certain treaties requiring consent of the host State to establish diplomatic posts. The Government counters that it is entitled to present evidence at trial as to each element of the offenses charged-and therefore that Al-Imam's argument is premature and unsuited to a motion to dismiss an indictment-and that it would be inappropriate to "import the terms of an international treaty to amend clearly worded statutory definitions in U.S. criminal statutes." Opp. at 39. Because the treaties Al-Imam cites do not apply to the *283Mission or Annex, the Court will deny his motion to dismiss these counts.
1. Statutory Background
Section 930(c) prohibits "kill[ing] any person ... in the course of an attack on a Federal facility involving the use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon [and] attempt[ing] or conspir[ing] to do such an act."
Section 844(f) prohibits "maliciously damag[ing] or destroy[ing], or attempt[ing] [to do so], by means of fire or an explosive, any building, vehicle, or other personal or real property in whole or in part owned or possessed by, or leased to, the United States, or any department or agency thereof."
2. The Parties' Arguments
Al-Imam begins his argument with the observation that "[i]mplicit in [the] statutes is a presumption that the government acts within the larger legal framework established by Congress, abiding by treaties it has enacted." MTD at 24. The governing treaties here, he contends, are the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and Optional Protocol on Disputes and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and Optional Protocol on Disputes (the "Vienna Conventions"), which "require mutual consent for the establishment of any diplomatic post (not just permanent ones),"
The Government counters that these statutes should not be read to incorporate treaty requirements found nowhere in the statutory text because "federal crimes ... are solely the creatures of statute," and Congress is entrusted with designating elements of federal criminal offenses. Opp. at 40 (quoting Staples v. United States,
*2843. Applicability of the Vienna Conventions
As multilateral treaties, the Vienna Conventions "are contracts between sovereigns, [which] should be construed to give effect to the intent of the signatories." Gonzalez Paredes v. Vila,
The Court need not delve into the Government's contention that criminal laws are "creatures of statute" that should never be read in light of international law. See Murray v. Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 62,
The treaties require mutual consent for the "establishment of consular relations ," Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and Optional Protocol on Disputes art. 2, Apr. 24, 1963, 21 U.S.T. 77 (emphasis added), and the "establishment of diplomatic relations ... and of permanent diplomatic missions ," Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and Optional Protocol Disputes art. 2, Apr. 18, 1961, 23 U.S.T. 3227 (emphases added). The establishment of consular or diplomatic relations with a foreign state is distinct from the U.S. Government's owning or leasing "a building or part thereof ... where Federal employees are regularly present for the purpose of performing their official duties,"
Furthermore, the establishment of permanent diplomatic or consular relations is distinct from the use of nonpermanent locations for temporary diplomatic purposes. See Tachiona ex rel. Tachiona v. Mugabe,
Al-Imam appears not to dispute that the Special Mission in Benghazi was established as a temporary concern. The State Department report that he cites for support, MTD at 29-30, describes the Mission's staffing as "short-term" and "transitory," Accountability Review Bd., U.S. Dep't of State, Benghazi Attack Report 14 (Unclassified) (2012),16 noting that the Mission "was never a consulate and never formally notified to the Libyan government," id. at 14-15.
The bipartisan Senate intelligence report on the attacks, issued in January 2014, likewise characterizes the Mission as nonpermanent, using the term "U.S. Temporary Mission Facility." U.S. Senate Select Comm. Intelligence, Review of the Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Facilities in Benghazi, Libya, September 11-12, 2012, at 4 (2014), http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/press/benghazi.pdf. And commentators have hypothesized that part of the reason the attack was so devastating was the mission's "confusing legal status": "It wasn't an embassy or even an official consulate; it was so off-book that the Libyan government was never officially notified of its existence. This put the mission outside the normal State Department procedures used to allocate security funding and personnel." Zack Beauchamp, 9 Questions About Benghazi You Were Too Embarrassed to Ask, Vox (Oct. 12, 2015, 9:00 AM), http://www.vox.com/2015/10/12/9489389/benghazi-explained. While this account may bolster Al-Imam's argument that the United State never obtained consent from the TNC to establish the Mission or Annex, it demonstrates that such consent was not required under the Vienna Conventions given the transitory nature of the posts.
Moreover, as the Government points out, it would make little sense for a foreign state to have veto power over the protections these statutes afford federal employees working in federal facilities. While requiring the host state's consent to establish diplomatic or consular relations or permanent diplomatic facilities is consistent with the purposes of diplomacy and international cooperation, limiting the scope of a U.S. criminal statute designed to protect federal workers, whether within U.S. boundaries or abroad, subverts Americans' safety to the decision of a foreign state.
The Government also urges the Court to reject Al-Imam's Vienna Convention argument because it presents a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, which the Government is entitled to establish at trial. The Government does not explicitly concede that it did not seek or obtain consent from the TNC to set up or operate the posts, but it also does not directly refute *286Al-Imam's claim that it never made the recognized Libyan Government aware of the locations. It focuses instead on the inapplicability of the treaties.
As discussed above, however, resolution of the questions before the Court does not turn on the Mission's or Annex's status under the Vienna Conventions. Rather, the Court is able to determine as a matter of law that, whether or not the United States obtained consent from the TNC to set up the Mission and Annex, the Vienna Conventions do not bear on those entities' status as federal facilities or U.S. property. The Court may therefore address Al-Imam's argument at this stage. See United States v. Yakou,
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Court will deny [51] Defendant's Motion to Dismiss Counts One Through Seventeen. A separate Order shall accompany this memorandum opinion.
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