Benghazi Hospital Was Told to List Stevens As 'John Doe'

The Benghazi Medical Center in Libya was instructed by U.S. officials to use the pseudonym "John Doe" on the death certificate of Ambassador Christopher Stevens after he was killed in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the American compound there.

Citing a U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity, CBS News reported the pseudonym was used as a way to conceal that a prominent individual was a casualty of the attack during the rush to determine how to recover Stevens' body and return it home.

The official also provided CBS with other fresh details about the attack and its aftermath, including the suggestion that U.S. officials still aren't sure today whether Stevens was still alive when locals in Benghazi made cell phone video recordings of his body being carried or dragged from the U.S. mission, possibly by looters who were combing through the burned out building and debris.

This official also told CBS that U.S. authorities still don't know who transported Stevens to the Benghazi Medical Center, where medical personnel attempted to resuscitate him for about 40 minutes.

The new information offers a somewhat more complete account of the hours following Stevens' death which culminated with him being flown with three other Americans killed in the attack from Benghazi to Tripoli on the morning of Wednesday, September 12, and then on to Germany, and finally Andrews Air Force base in Maryland on Friday, Sept. 14.

After a brief ceremony at Andrews attended by President Barack Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Stevens' body was then transported to an FBI facility in Dover, Del., where autopsy determined that he died of asphyxia, presumably from smoke inhalation, according to the CBS report.

The autopsy, CBS noted, found no internal damage, no indication of assault or mistreatment of his body.