Would-be bomber gets 22 years

SEATTLE – The terrorist volunteered for a life sentence, and the prosecutor said justice demanded nothing less.

But a federal judge Wednesday re-imposed a 22-year prison term for Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport at the turn of the millennium.

With credit for time served and good behavior, the al-Qaida-trained terrorist who intended to kill hundreds or more would be released in 10 years, when he’s 51.

“To say I’m profoundly disappointed would be an understatement,” U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said afterward, promising to ask the Justice Department to appeal. “He deserves to be locked up until he dies.”

U.S. border guards in Port Angeles, on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, arrested Ressam as he drove a rented car packed with explosives off a ferry from British Columbia in December 1999. The ensuing scare prompted Seattle officials to cancel some millennium celebrations at the Space Needle, though investigators determined Ressam’s target was a terminal at the Los Angeles airport, busy with holiday travel.

U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour first sentenced Ressam to 22 years in 2005, saying leniency was merited by Ressam’s cooperation with terrorism investigators following his 2001 conviction on terrorism, explosives and other charges. But a federal appeals court vacated the sentence and asked the judge to better explain himself and to follow new federal sentencing procedures.

This time, Coughenour determined the guideline range for Ressam’s offenses to be 65 years to life, and said that even though Ressam “unwisely” stopped cooperating by 2003 – forcing the Justice Department to drop charges against two alleged coconspirators – the information he did provide likely saved innocent lives.

“Its importance has not changed in my analysis today,” Coughenour told a courtroom packed with reporters, other prosecutors and judges, as well as a law school class and the father of a 9/11 victim.

Failing to credit Ressam’s cooperation could discourage other terrorists from speaking to investigators in the future, Coughenour said. He also noted that 22 years was longer than the 20 years given to John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban,” and the 17 years given to Jose Padilla, convicted of supporting terrorism after investigators said he planned to set off a radioactive “dirty bomb” and blow up an apartment building.

Ressam, a thin man with a short beard and closely cropped hair, addressed the court personally, through an interpreter. He recanted all of his previous cooperation – “I did not know what I was saying,” he claimed – and insisted that lawyers and prosecutors had badgered him into making false allegations against other alleged terrorists. He made no apologies or explanations for his actions.

“I have escaped my words, finally,” Ressam said. “Sentence me to life in prison or anything you wish. I will have no objection to your sentence. Thank you.”

Prosecutors last week filed a memo with the court seeking a 45-year sentence, but Sullivan and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Bartlett became so indignant listening to Ressam speak in court that they changed their recommendation to life.

Bartlett argued fervently, comparing Ressam’s capture to what it would have been like to arrest Timothy McVeigh as he drove a truck laden with explosives into Oklahoma City.

“I would ask the court to think about how many people would have been killed,” Bartlett implored.

A jury convicted Ressam in 2001 of nine offenses, including an act of international terrorism, smuggling explosives and presenting a false passport. Hoping to avoid a life sentence, he began cooperating with international terrorism investigators, telling them about training camps he had attended in Afghanistan and al-Qaida’s use of safe houses, among other things.

Ressam quit talking with investigators by early 2003. His lawyers insisted that long periods in solitary confinement had taken their toll on his mental state; prosecutors argued that Ressam’s newfound reticence came because they would not agree to recommend a sentence of less than 27 years.

In 2005, Coughenour sentenced Ressam to 22 years, essentially splitting the difference between what prosecutors and defense attorneys requested. Coughenour used the occasion to chastise the Bush administration’s handling of “enemy combatants” in the war on terror, saying Ressam’s prosecution proved that U.S. courts can handle such cases.

Both sides appealed, with the government arguing the sentence was too light and Ressam’s lawyers challenging his conviction on one charge. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction in May, and the 9th Circuit sent the case back to Coughenour for resentencing in accordance with recent changes in federal sentencing procedures.