that before the attacks were viewed mostly as a political firestorm they were a crime scene with real victimsmr woods a former member of the navy seals was one of them his father charles woods called mr khattala an unrepentant terrorist charles woods said his son had become a father himself days before the attack and had pledged to make benghazi his last assignmentim not here to seek vengeance or retribution mr woods said how can this be done by giving him the maximum it would be wrong to give him anything lessafter the sentencing the united states attorneys office in washington issued a terse statement detailing the sentence mr khattalas lawyer declined to comment but appeared relieved that the judge had not agreed with prosecutors on a life sentenceduring the hearing mr khattalas lawyer jeffrey d robinson said his client was not a monster and implored the judge not to pass a sentence as if he had been convicted on all counts and of murderone of the prosecutors michael c dilorenzo compared mr khattalas case to that of the bombings of the american embassies in kenya and tanzania in 1998 a suspect ahmed khalfan ghailani was acquitted on all but one of the more than 280 charges of conspiracy and murder he faced nonetheless the judge in the case sentenced mr ghailani to life in prisonjudge cooper seemed skeptical of the comparison to mr khattalas caseit is not clear whether mr khattalas sentence will affect the governments continuing operations to catch and prosecute those responsible for the benghazi attacks more than a dozen people have been chargedrepublicans including attorney general jeff sessions and conservative news media commentators have attacked the use of the civilian courts system for terrorism cases mr sessions has said for years that terrorism suspects should be held and prosecuted at the wartime prison at the naval base in guantnamo bay cubahe has said that terrorists do not deserve the same legal rights as common criminals and that such trials were too dangerous to hold in the united statescritics have also argued that civilian trials present a greater risk of disclosures of classified information and could turn courthouses into targets for terrorist attacksjudge cooper took a swipe at that argument saying that federal courts could handle terrorism trials with voluminous classified information and anybody who disagreed obviously did not come and watch this onehe described american justice as swift and thorough in stark contrast to the military tribunals being held at guantnamo bay detention camp where five of the men accused of carrying out the sept 11 2001 attacks await a trial not expected to begin until 2020