![\"http:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/libref\/historic\/famcases\/ressam\/ahmed_ressam.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/libref\/historic\/famcases\/ressam\/ahmed_ressam.jpg\" "\\"http:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/libref\/historic\/famcases\/ressam\/ahmed_ressam.jpg\\"")
<\/img>The 22-year prison sentence given to would-be Los Angeles International Airport bomber Ahmed Ressam is so lenient that it constitutes procedural error and failure by the Seattle\u00a0judge who sentenced him to adequately protect the public,\u00a0a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.<\/p>\n
A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Algerian’s case transferred to a different judge for resentencing, saying that U.S. District Court Judge John C. Coughenour failed to heed federal sentencing guidelines and a U.S. Supreme Court rebuke.<\/p>\n
Ressam was detained in Washington state in December 1999 when he attempted to smuggle explosives into the United States on a ferry from Canada with plans to detonate them at LAX. He initially cooperated with interrogators and provided what Coughenour termed vital insight into the workings of terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda. <\/p>\n
But Ressam ceased helping federal agents and\u00a0retracted his statements implicating other terror suspects after being subjected to solitary confinement and what he considered interrogation excesses.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Coughenour twice\u00a0rejected the federal sentencing recommendation of 65 years in prison for the terrorism conspiracy offense,\u00a0a position the 9th Circuit panel\u00a0said constituted procedural error. The judge also failed to\u00a0consider the potential national security consequences for the U.S. public if Ressam were to be released after only a 22-year term, as he would be only 53 years old, the appeals panel said.<\/p>\n
Ressam, now 42, has remained incarcerated the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., throughout the legal appeals of his sentence.<\/p>\n
— Carol J. Williams<\/p>\n
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