Appeals court vacates sentence of "millennium bomber"

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court on today vacated the sentence of ``millennium bomber'' Ahmed Ressam, who was arrested near the U.S.-Canadian border and convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport.

Ressam was arrested in December 1999 in Port Angeles when he drove off a ferry from British Columbia with a trunk full of 124 pounds of explosives. Prosecutors said he was intent on bombing the airport on the eve of the millennium.

The arrest raised fears of terrorism attacks and prompted the cancellation of millennium celebrations at the Space Needle.

He was sentenced to 22 years after being convicted of all nine charges, including terrorism conspiracy and explosives charges. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed his conviction on one of the charges and sent the case back to a lower court judge to issue a new sentence and explain the rationale behind the original 22-year term.

The decision does not necessarily mean Ressam will get a shorter term, as federal prosecutors said the original sentence was too light and judges are given wide latitude to sentence defendants as they see fit.

After he was convicted in 2001, Ressam began cooperating with authorities in hopes of winning a reduced sentence.

Over the next two years, according to court documents, Ressam provided information on more than 100 potential terrorists and testified against co-conspirator Moktar Haouari and Sept. 11 plotter Mounir el-Motassadeq.

Ressam told authorities he saw Zacarias Moussaoui at a training camp in Afghanistan in 1998; he told investigators about the type of shoe-bomb Richard Reid attempted to use on a U.S.-bound American Airlines flight in 2001. And, his lawyers say, Ressam helped save lives by providing information about a network of Algerian terrorists operating in Europe.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour of Seattle, who sentenced Ressam, said the information he provided was ``startlingly helpful.''

But Ressam's cooperation came to a halt by early 2003, resulting in the charges being dropped against two other co-conspirators. His lawyers said years of solitary confinement, broken by periods of intense interrogation, had taken their toll on his mental health and corrupted his memory.

The case is United States v. Ressam, 05-30422