A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the 22-year prison sentence imposed on an al-Qaida-trained Algerian terrorist -- dubbed the "millennium bomber'" -- for plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport was too lenient.
An 11-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 7-4 in favor of the government's argument that sentencing guidelines for Ahmed Ressam's convictions called for a range of 65 years to life.
Ressam was caught at the U.S.-Canada border in December 1999 with explosives capable of producing a blast 40 times greater than a car bomb.
The appeals panel cited procedural errors in rejecting the sentence given to Ressam, who was arrested Dec. 14, 1999, at a ferry terminal in Port Angeles, Wash., after crossing from British Columbia, Canada, in a rented sedan with explosives in the trunk.
The court ordered that Ressam be re-sentenced by another federal judge in Seattle, calling the current sentence too short.
"Upon our review of the record, we have a definite and firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of judgment in sentencing Ressam as it did," Judge Richard R. Clifton wrote. "As a result, we conclude that the sentence imposed by the district court was substantively unreasonable."
The ruling upholds a 2010 opinion by a three-judge 9th Circuit panel.
Local
Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.
Ressam was recruited by al-Qaida and trained to build bombs in Afghanistan. He was one of four militants identified as part of the plot to set off explosions at public venues during the New Year's Eve celebrations ushering in 2000.
Ressam cooperated with interrogators after his 2001 conviction, providing federal agents with information on other al-Qaida operatives, including alleged co-conspirators held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
His 22-year sentence, including a 10-year minimum applied for carrying explosives during the commission of a felony, was imposed by U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle in 2005.
It was the middle ground between the 35 years requested by the U.S. Attorney's Office and the 12.5 years proposed by Ressam's federal public defenders.
The appeals court ruled previously that Coughenour committed procedural error "in imposing a sentence that is well below the advisory sentencing guidelines range.''
Ressam, now 44, is incarcerated at the federal "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colo.
