National News

Libyan doctor: U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens died of "severe asphyxia"

Posted: Sep 12, 2012 8:56 AM by CBS News
Updated: Sep 12, 2012 8:59 AM

TRIPOLI, Libya - The Libyan doctor who treated U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens says the diplomat died of severe asphyxiation and that he tried for 90 minutes to revive him.

Ziad Abu Zeid told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Stevens was brought to the Benghazi Medical Center by Libyans the night before, with no other Americans and that initially no one realized he was the ambassador.

Abu Zeid said Stevens had "severe asphyxia," apparently from smoke inhalation, causing stomach bleeding, but had no other injuries.

Assault on U.S. consulate in Benghazi leaves 4 dead, including U.S. ambassador

Stevens and three American security guards died when the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi came under attack from a mob angry over an anti-Islam film made in the U.S. The crowd fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades and set fire to the consulate.

Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building, deemed safer, after the initial wave of protests at the consulate.

According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack.

Stevens, 52, was the first U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since 1979.

Military officials told CBS News an anti-terrorism team of U.S. Marines was being deployed to Libya to help secure U.S. interests in the country following the attack. The State Department said, however, that no Americans were remaining at the facility in Benghazi. State officials would not confirm how many Americans were evacuated, or to where.