A Libyan Al-Qaeda suspect captured by US troops in Tripoli last year told a US court today that he had been on hunger strike when questioned by FBI agents.
Anas al-Libi, 50, took the stand Wednesday for the first time during a hearing to suppress an incriminating statement he gave the Federal Bureau of Investigation while being flown to New York last year.
He is due to go on trial on November 3 for conspiracy charges over the 1998 Al-Qaeda bombings of US embassies in East Africa that killed 244 people and wounded more than 5,000 others. He has pleaded not guilty.
During testimony that lasted 30 minutes, Libi told a US federal court in New York that he was handed to the FBI in handcuffs on October 12, 2013 and flown to New York, where he was admitted to a hospital upon arrival.
Speaking very quietly through a translator, he told the court that he had been on hunger strike during the seven-hour flight.
He told "anyone who asked me" that he was on hunger strike but did not say when it began or how many days it had lasted because he had "no watch."
He was detained by US commandos on October 5, 2013 and interrogated on board a US warship before being handed over to FBI agents on October 12.
Today's hearing took place because Libi has moved to suppress a statement he gave to the FBI during the flight in order for it not to be admitted at trial.
US prosecutors said he spoke to agents after waiving his rights. When he asked for a lawyer the day after arriving in the United States, questioning stopped until he was given access to a lawyer, they said.
Judge Lewis Kaplan deferred a decision Wednesday and adjourned the court.
Libi pleads not guilty to charges that he conspired to murder, kidnap, maim, kill, destroy property and attack US defense buildings.
The August 7, 1998 car bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi killed 213 people and wounded another 5,000.
A near simultaneous truck bomb outside the US mission in Tanzania killed 11 people and wounded 70 more.
The computer expert had been on the FBI's most wanted list with a USD 5 million price on his head.
