The Blind Sheikh (Omar Abdel Rahman) is prominently featured in our original report, Ironclad: Egypt Involved in Benghazi Attacks. Now, we’d like to draw your attention to the name Mohammed al-Zawahiri. He is the younger brother of al-Qaeda’s number one, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Check out what Thomas Jocelyn of the Long War Journal has to say about Mohammed:

…there is already at least one group calling itself “Ansar al Sharia in Egypt.” The group is run mainly by former members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), a terrorist organization headed by Ayman al Zawahiri that merged with al Qaeda. Mohammed al Zawahiri, Ayman’s younger brother, stars at the group’s events.

EXHIBIT Z (for Zawahiri?)

Marjan Salem was identified as the founder and leader of Ansar al-Sharia in Egypt. The Libyan Intelligence document we introduced as Exhibit B in our initial report said that Marjan was named by members of Ansar al-Sharia Egypt who were arrested in connection with the Benghazi attacks.

Now, here is EXHIBIT Z. This is video of a CNN news report with Nic Robertson. It is from September 11, 2012. During this report. Robertson interviews both Mohammed al Zawahiri and the son of Omar Abdel Rahman (the “Blind Sheikh”) outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo just hours before it was attacked. The reason they were outside the embassy was because there were protests going on there. What were they protesting?

Well, they wanted the Blind Sheikh released, via CNN:

As we have learned, the goal of Ansar al-Sharia Egypt is to “release Islamist prisoners”.

Let’s move on to what we’ll call EXHIBIT Z1. It is an article from July 27, 2012, about the threats of the Blind Sheikh’s son that appeared in the Egypt Independent:

The son of Omar Abdel Rahman, a Jama’a al-Islamiya leader known as the “Blind Sheikh” who was convicted of terrorism charges in the US in 1995, threatened to organize a protest at the US Embassy in Cairo and detain the employees inside.

Abdallah Abdel Rahman’s threat came during a press conference organized by the sheikh’s family near the highly fortified American embassy compound on Thursday evening.

Abdel Rahman demanded that President Mohamed Morsy intervene for the release of his father as he did in the case of Egyptian journalist Shaimaa Adel who was detained for nearly two weeks for covering protests in Sudan then flown back to Egypt on a plane with Morsy.

Picking up on what’s in bold, the Blind Sheikh’s son was threatening to kidnap Americans from the U.S. embassy in Cairo to exchange for his father and was calling on Mursi to get involved. Thanks to the CNN video report, we also know that Ansar al-Sharia’s Mohammed al Zawahiri is in solidarity with the Blind Sheikh’s son.

Remember EXHIBIT A and EXHIBIT B? One was a video, shot in real time during the attack in which gunmen can be heard shouting that they were sent by Mursi. The other is a document that implicates Ansar al-Sharia Egypt, which clearly had representatives outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on 9/11/12.

Another Egypt Independent article, dated April 10, 2012, is being submitted as EXHIBIT Z2. Before we get to it though, consider that there were forces at work prior to that time who wanted to release detained prisoners – one of whom was Sam LaHood, son of then U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood – in exchange for the Blind Sheikh.

That didn’t happen and at a court hearing in April of last year, lawyers who wanted the Blind Sheikh’s release made no bones about how badly they wanted the judge to order an exchange:

One lawyer demanded the release of Omar Abdel Rahman, an Egyptian serving a life sentence in the US on charges of seditious conspiracy, saying “we are not less worthy than Americans.” The lawyer even approached the judge’s bench with a poster of the “Blind Sheikh” that was snatched out of his hand by Judge Makram Awwad.

What should be increasingly obvious is that not only was the Benghazi attack not about a response to an anti-Muhammad video but based on evidence we’ve seen, it wasn’t the motivation for the protests in front of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo either.

Additionally noteworthy is the fact that CNN’s Nic Robertson produced a report on 9/11/12 – from outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, before the embassy was attacked – about protests that demanded the release of the Blind Sheikh. Despite this, the network continued to push the narrative that the anti-Muhammad video was responsible.

A CNN report published on September 13, 2012, just two days after the Benghazi attacks is being introduced as EXHIBIT Z3. Here is an excerpt:

Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed Tuesday in Libya amid a regional furor over the film, which mocks Islam’s prophet.

Evidence produced by… CNN on 9/11/12 suggests that CNN didn’t do its job on 9/13/12.

h/t Rho