CT Blog Posts on Ahmed Ressam, Millenium Bomber Whose Sentence Was Vacated Today
By Andrew Cochran
Today the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the 22-year prison sentence given to Ahmed Ressam, the convicted "Millenium Bomber," and ordered the lower court to determine the appropriate sentence. Angst over the court's decision should be mitigated by reading the full opinion, available here: the court decided this on legal technicalities over the meaning of a statute and the propriety of the jury instructions. It overturned only one of the nine counts on which Ressam was convicted. In the majority opinion, the court states, "The government introduced ample evidence that Ressam falsely signed the customs form as Benni Noris and that he carried explosives in the trunk of his car. Ressam so concedes. However, the evidence adduced at trial does not show that the explosives “facilitated or played a role in the crime” of lying on the customs declaration."
The court reiterated the proven facts of Ressam's terrorist ties: "Ahmed Ressam trained with members of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and hatched a plot to detonate explosives at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in the days before the new Millennium... Once in Pakistan, Ressam met Abu Zubaydah, who arranged Ressam’s travel to the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan. Ressam stayed with an Algerian terror group at Khalden for six months. During that time, he received firearms training and learned how to fire a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Al Qaeda operatives at the camp taught Ressam to make explosive charges and showed him how to detonate particular types of plastic explosives. Ressam also learned how to destroy infrastructure targets, such as power plants, military installations, railroads, and airports. He later went to a second camp near Jalalabad where he received further training in explosives. It was during this time that Ressam and others hatched the plot to target a U.S. airport to coincide with the Millennium."
CT Blog Contributing Experts have previously posted on Ressam's affiliations and the actions of his cohorts:
Evan Kohlmann:
"Convicted Terrorists Send Advice to Brethren From Within U.S. Prisons," March 1, 2005
"Algerian "Junior Osama Bin Laden" Resurfaces in Bosnia-Herzegovina," Aug. 29, 2005
"Abu Khabab al-Masri: A Master of Terror," January 18, 2006
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, "The Return of Fateh Kamel," Feb. 27, 2005