LOS ANGELES: A US judge jailed the so-called “Millennium bomber” for 37 years Wednesday for plotting to bomb Los Angeles airport on New Year’s Eve 1999, but rejected calls for a life sentence.Algerian al Qaeda member Ahmed Ressam, who was arrested as he entered the United States driving a car packed with explosives, was previously jailed for 22 years, but the sentence was quashed, twice, the last time in 2010.
In passing a sentence of 37 years, US District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle rebuffed the prosecution’s calls for Ressam to be jailed for 65 years to life.
He highlighted Ressam’s initial cooperation with prosecutors, including testifying against co-conspirator Mokhtar Haouari and identifying 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui from a photograph.
“This case provokes our greatest fears,” said his 18-page sentencing order, posted online.
“Many, including the federal government, believe that Mr Ressam is a continuing threat and he should never see freedom again. But fear is not, nor has it ever been, the guide for a federal sentencing judge.”
Citing federal sentencing guidelines, he said the court was setting a sentence that was “sufficient, but not greater than necessary.”
Ressam was arrested in November 1999 as he crossed the US-Canadian border with a carload of explosives that prosecutors said he planned to detonate at the busy Los Angeles airport in a spectacular eve-of-Millennium attack.
He was convicted of nine counts connected to the plot in April 2001, but sentencing was delayed until 2005 as US authorities sought his cooperation to help uncover information about other global terror suspects.
Ressam was eventually jailed for 22 years, but his sentence was vacated after he successfully challenged his conviction on one of the charges, relating to declarations made to customs officials, on technical grounds.
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