Ahmed Ressam - Trial, Sentencing, and Appeals

Trial, Sentencing, and Appeals

Indictment and trial

Ressam was indicted by a superseding indictment on January 20, 2000, for nine counts of criminal activity in connection with his attempt to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport on December 31, 1999: 1) an act of terrorism transcending a national boundary; 2) placing an explosive in proximity to a terminal; 3) false identification documents; 4) use of a fictitious name for admission to the U.S.; 5) the felony of making a false statement to a U.S. Customs official; 6) smuggling; 7) transportation of explosives; 8) possession of an unregistered firearm; and 9) carrying an explosive during the commission of a felony.

Following a 19-day trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, with approximately 120 witnesses, a jury found Ressam guilty on all counts of his indictment on April 6, 2001. That same day, he was convicted in absentia in France, and sentenced to five years for conspiring to commit terrorist acts there.

Cooperation and sentencing

His sentencing was delayed for four years, to give counter-terrorism analysts a chance to fully exploit him as an intelligence source. Facing up to 130 years in prison, Ressam began cooperating with investigators after his conviction pursuant to a June 23, 2001, cooperation agreement that he entered into with the U.S. government. Under the agreement, after he cooperated fully with the U.S. and other governments, the U.S. government would recommend a prison sentence taking his cooperation into consideration, though the recommendation would not under any circumstances be less than 27 years.

He provided information to law enforcement officials of the U.S. and six other countries with regard to al-Qaeda's organization, recruitment, and training activities. He revealed that al-Qaeda sleeper cells existed within the U.S. This information was included in the famous President's Daily Brief delivered to President George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, entitled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US. He testified in July 2001 against his accomplice and co-conspirator Haouari, and Ressam's testimony was also used by the Guantanamo Bay Combatant Status Review Tribunal to decide that friends of his, such as fellow Algerian Ahcene Zemiri, should continue to be held as unlawful combatants.

The Summary of Evidence memo prepared for Abu Zubeida's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, and the transcript from his Tribunal, indicate that 7 of the 12 unclassified allegations that Abu Zubeida faced were based on Ressam's confessions. The Globe and Mail opined that the intelligence analysts' heavy reliance on Ressam's confessions was due to a desire to have all the unclassified allegations against Abu Zubeida based on evidence that clearly didn't rely on torture.

One person whom he was not asked about until after 9/11, but whom he was able to identify when asked as having trained with him at the Khalden Camp, was Zacarias Moussaoui, an al-Qaeda member later implicated in the 9/11 plot. Moussaoui had been arrested by the FBI on August 16, 2001. But FBI agents were without success trying to convince their superiors that there was enough evidence to obtain a warrant to allow them to search Moussaoui's laptop and belongings. The 9/11 Commission Report opined that had Ressam been asked about Moussaoui, he would have broken that logjam. Had that happened, the Report opined, the U.S. might conceivably have disrupted or derailed the September 11 attacks altogether.

By November 28, 2001, Ressam began to express reluctance about discussing some matters. By early 2003, after having provided 65 hours of trial and deposition testimony and names of 150 people involved in terrorism, he stopped cooperating and began to recant his prior testimony.

The Seattle Times described Ressam's sentencing hearing as the "gripping climax" to Ressam's journey through the U.S. court system. U.S. Attorney John McKay argued Ressam should get a 35-year sentence, because he had declined to cooperate in two cases, which would now go unprosecuted. Ressam's lawyer argued that Ressam should be given a sentence of less than 20 years, to reflect the value of his original cooperation, saying: "It is a flat fact that law enforcement, the public, and public safety benefited in immeasurable ways from Ressam's decision to go to trial and cooperate." Ressam didn't say anything during his sentencing hearing, but did send the judge a personal note, that included an apology for planning to bomb the airport.

On July 27, 2005, United States District Court Judge John Coughenour sentenced Ressam to 22 years in prison, plus 5 years of supervision after his release; credited for good conduct, he could have been released after 14 years. According to the Seattle Times, the judge used the occasion of Ressam's sentencing "to unleash a broadside against secret tribunals and other war on terrorism tactics that abandon 'the ideals that set our nation apart.'" The judge added: "The tragedy of September 11 shook our sense of security and made us realize that we, too, are vulnerable to acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, some believe that this threat renders our Constitution obsolete ... If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won."

Appeals and sentencing guidelines

On January 16, 2007, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Seattle reversed Ressam's conviction on one of the charges, due to the majority's reading of the applicable law. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, then overturned the Ninth Circuit in an 8–1 decision on May 19, 2008, restoring the original convictions and sentence.

On February 2, 2010, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that his 22-year sentence was too lenient, and did not fit in the then-mandatory sentencing guidelines, which indicated he should have received at least 65 years, and up to 130 years, in prison. Finding that the trial court judge's "views appear too entrenched to allow for the appearance of fairness on remand," the appellate court ordered that Ressam be re-sentenced by a different district court judge from the one who had handed down the original sentence. In March 2010, Ressam's lawyer said he would file a petition for a rehearing before the Ninth Circuit Court.