SEATTLE (Reuters) - Convicted "Millennium Bomber" Ahmed Ressam, whose 22-year prison term was judged too lenient by a U.S. appeals court, faces re-sentencing on Wednesday for a foiled New Year's Eve 1999 plot to set off explosives at Los Angeles International Airport.
Federal prosecutors who appealed the original punishment have asked the Seattle-based U.S. district judge presiding over the case to impose a new sentence that will require Ressam, an Algerian national, to spend the rest of his life in prison.
They argue that Ressam deserves a much harsher penalty because he reneged on an agreement to assist in the prosecution of other suspected militants and later recanted all his testimony and other statements to authorities.
By doing so Ressam "has returned to the camp of the terrorist," prosecutors wrote in a pre-sentencing memorandum.
Ressam's lawyers recommend he be sentenced to between 30 and 34 years imprisonment, arguing that this is close to the 35-year term prosecutors previously recommended.
The defense also said that 35 years in prison is the statutory maximum penalty carried by the core crimes for which Ressam was convicted - an act of terrorism through the use of explosives.
They also argue that Ressam should still receive credit for the valuable information he did provide to authorities, including testimony against a convicted co-conspirator.
According to the defense, Ressam also identified Zacarias Moussaoui, a convicted September 11 conspirator, as an individual he met at a militant training camp in Afghanistan, and gave information leading to the arrest of al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah.
In a statement filed in court last week, Ressam repeated his retraction of all previous statements, saying a deal to cooperate was made under duress.
He also insisted he was "against killing innocent people of any gender, color or religion," adding, "I apologize for my action." He concluded by saying, "You can judge me as you wish, I will not object to any of your sentences."
MENTAL STRESS
Defense lawyers have suggested that severe mental stress Ressam suffered from seven-plus years in solitary confinement at the "Supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado, may have influenced his decision to recant.
He was expected to appear in court for re-sentencing on Wednesday, his lawyer, Thomas Hillier told Reuters.
Ressam was arrested in December 1999 as he attempted to cross into the United States from British Columbia and aroused the suspicion of a U.S. Customs inspector at a ferry landing in Port Angeles, Washington.
After he tried to run away, the trunk of his rental car was found packed with explosives capable of producing a blast 40 times greater than that of a typical car bomb, authorities said.
A jury convicted him in April 2001 of nine felony counts for his role in a plot to set off the explosives at Los Angeles International Airport on December 31, 1999.
He subsequently reached a deal with prosecutors to cooperate in helping to bring other terror suspects to justice, and was finally sentenced in 2008 to 22 years in prison, plus five years of supervised release.
Prosecutors, angry that Ressam had by then ceased cooperating, appealed the penalty as falling far short of the prison term called for under U.S. sentencing guidelines.
A divided 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and by a 7-4 vote ordered the case sent back to U.S. District Judge John Coughenour for re-sentencing.
The appeals court majority ruled that Coughenour failed to properly account for the fact that Ressam, who has been incarcerated since late 1999, would be 51 when released, sufficiently young enough to pose a threat to the public.
Defense lawyers argued that Ressam faces deportation back to Algeria and likely further imprisonment there once released from U.S. custody. They also said he would most certainly be a marked man, viewed by groups such as al Qaeda as a traitor for the cooperation he gave U.S. authorities before his recantation.
Disputing prosecutors' assertions that the information he provided was of little value, defense lawyers said Ressam gave more than 70 interviews to prosecutors from the United States and several other Western countries. They said he gave dozens of names authorities could act on, as well as vital information about recruitment, training, organization and financing of Islamist militant groups.
(Additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/millennium-bomber-faces-sentencing-seattle-110448051.html
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