Justice Department argues for tougher sentence for Ressam

The judge who sentenced Ahmed Ressam to 22 years in prison should be ordered to impose a stiffer sentence on the man who planned to blow up holiday travelers at Los Angeles International Airport, a Justice Department lawyer argued Monday.

U.S. Attorney John McKay, in the unusual appeal, said U.S. District Judge John Coughenour had abused his discretion, failed to justify the sentence and misused Ressam's sentencing to criticize U.S. policy about having terrorism suspects held indefinitely or tried before secretive military tribunals.

"These are reversible errors," McKay told a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals convened in Seattle. If the sentence stands, Ressam "will be released in 15 years, leaving him, if he chooses, to rejoin his al-Qaida comrades when he is 54 years old," McKay said.

Ressam's attorney, Federal Public Defender Thomas Hillier, when questioned by Judge Pamela Ann Rymer, agreed that Coughenour needs to justify the length of the 22-year sentence to comply with case law and sentencing guidelines.

"We can't tell why he picked that number," Rymer said.

It will be many months before the case is decided. The U.S. Supreme Court last week agreed to hear two cases, about sentencing discretion, that may affect the circuit court's decision.

Ressam was arrested Dec. 14, 1999, in Port Angeles as he drove off a ferry from Victoria, B.C., in a rental car packed with explosives. The Algerian refugee later admitted he had been recruited by al-Qaida and trained at Osama bin Laden's terrorism camps in Afghanistan.

He was convicted in April 2001 of nine federal felonies, including conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism. A month later, he began to cooperate with law enforcement.

Ressam identified at least 130 members of terrorism cells, testified in two terrorism trials and cooperated with the governments of Canada, England, France, Germany and Italy.

At one point, both prosecutors and the defense said that Ressam's sentence should be considerably lighter because of his help, and agreed to a 27-year sentence. However, Ressam's cooperation faltered in 2003 and ended by 2005. His lawyers and a government psychiatrist concluded that years in solitary confinement and repeated interrogations caused him to suffer a mental breakdown.

Last year, prosecutors argued for a 35-year sentence, saying it accounted for his cooperation but also for his failing to live up to his agreement.

Prosecutors said they had to dismiss indictments against two alleged terrorists whose cases were built on Ressam's testimony: Abu Doha, a British citizen reported to be an al-Qaida recruiter, and Samir Ait Mohamed, a Canadian who allegedly had planned to detonate a gas truck in a Jewish neighborhood in Montreal.

Defense attorneys argued for a 12 ½-year sentence, saying Ressam's information had been nearly invaluable.

When he sentenced Ressam, Coughenour ripped the Bush administration for holding suspected terrorists without trial or trying them before secret tribunals.

"I would like to convey the message that our system works," Coughenour said of the Ressam case. "We did not need to use a secret military tribunal or detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant, or deny him the right to counsel."

The judge's remarks and the 22-year sentence infuriated some prosecutors and law-enforcement officials.

At Monday's hearing, McKay argued that the appellate court should send a message back to Coughenour: that his statements were out of line.

Ressam's lawyers also asked the appeals court to reverse one of Ressam's five explosives-related convictions. That conviction, for possessing explosives while committing another felony, resulted in a mandatory 10-year sentence.