Feds won't appeal sentence in millennium bomb plot

November 28, 2012 @ 2:43 pm

SEATTLE (AP) - A 37-year prison sentence will stand for an Algerian man convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport at the turn of the millennium.

The Justice Department said Wednesday it won't appeal the punishment for Ahmed Ressam (AH'-med rehs-AHM'), an al-Qaida-trained terrorist who was arrested driving into Washington state from Canada with a trunk full of explosives in December 1999.

U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour (KOO'-now-ur) sentenced Ressam for the third time last month, after two prior attempts were struck down by appeals courts.

Federal prosecutors argued for a life sentence. But Seattle U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan says the 37-year term will keep Ressam in custody until he's over 60, and at that point he'll be deported and could face additional charges in Algeria.

Ressam's lawyers also decided not to appeal.


(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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  • Snout wrote...
    Not enough time.
    November 28, 2012 2:11 pm
    So he'll be 60 when he gets out. Bin Laden was 54 when we punched his ticket. Do you really believe this tumor will change his ways in 37 years? Or will he instead spend those years reading his little prayer book of horrors and become even more radicalized?
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