Stevens Taken to Hospital Controlled by Same Group that Attacked Benghazi

Greg Hicks, the No. 2 United States Envoy to Libya, revealed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was taken to a hospital under control of the Islamic group Ansar al-Sharia, the same group believed to be responsible for the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.

“We had to save the ambassador, who was in the hospital which, as far as we knew, was under enemy control,” he said.

At 3 AM, Hicks received a call from the Libyan Prime Minister, who told him Ambassador Stevens passed away. Hicks said it was the saddest phone call of his life. The fire at the consulate was a petroleum fire, which produces cyanide gas. Stevens’s cause of death was smoke inhalation and asphyxiation.

Hicks was the deputy chief of mission and charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in Tripoli.