Bombing plotter writes to judge
SEATTLE – Lawyers for convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam say he has sent a letter, written in Arabic, to the federal court judge who sentenced him last year to 22 years in prison – and they’ve asked the judge not to read it for fear of tainting the case.
Few details were provided about the letter in court filings this week, but the documents indicate that U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour had it translated and placed it under seal. Coughenour’s office refused to say Wednesday whether he had read the letter.
Ressam’s lawyers said they had not seen the letter and did not know what it concerned, but that it could constitute an improper communication and be counter to the interests of Ressam’s defense. One of Ressam’s lawyers, Thomas Hillier, on Wednesday declined to say how the letter came to his attention.
“Mr. Ressam is not a citizen of this country, does not speak our language and has suffered difficult confinement for a substantial period of time,” Hillier wrote in court documents. “His letter may have been sent without fully appreciating the inappropriateness of contacting the court ex parte. The government has no right to take advantage of Mr. Ressam without the shield of counsel.”
Ressam and federal prosecutors have appealed aspects of his sentence to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which indicated it may send the case back to Coughenour to make findings on the record about the basis for the sentence. Prosecutors say 22 years was far too lenient a punishment.
Ressam was convicted in 2001 of terrorism and explosives charges for plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. Customs agents in Port Angeles caught him with explosives in the trunk of his rental car when he drove off a ferry from British Columbia in December 1999, a scare that prompted cancellation of millennium celebrations at Seattle’s Space Needle.
Ressam started cooperating with authorities after his conviction, which helped win him a lesser sentence. But he eventually stopped cooperating, infuriating prosecutors who were required to drop charges against two of his alleged co-conspirators.
Federal prosecutors argued in documents filed Tuesday that the judge should be allowed to read the letter because it could represent a pleading, a wish for new lawyers or a desire to resume cooperating.
“It is for Mr. Ressam to determine whether he wishes to file a matter with the court or whether he wishes to withdraw it, not counsel on his behalf,” prosecutors wrote.