Judge refuses to increase LAX millenium jihadist’s sentence
LAX bomb plotter Ahmed Ressam reneged on his deal with the feds and continues to play games with prosecutors. They requested that a federal judge double his sentence for terrorism-related convictions.
The judge (more on him in a moment) refused:
Ahmed Ressam was resentenced this morning to 22 years in federal prison for conspiring to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport despite telling a judge that he recanted everything he has told the federal government about terrorist activities.
Ressam, speaking in Arabic through an interpreter, told U.S. District Judge John Coughenour that he withdrew his testimony from a 2002 terrorism trial against a co-conspirator in New York.
Federal prosecutors, based on Ressam’s statement, urged Coughenour, to sentence Ressam to life in prison, saying he now clearly posed a threat to the U.S. Coughenour, however, said that despite Ressam’s retractions, the information he provided the government shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, 911 attacks was invaluable to the government.
Federal prosecutors said they would seek to appeal the sentence.
This was the second time Ressam appeared before the judge for sentencing. His first sentence, also 22 years, was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court. But the high court let stand his conviction for conspiring to set off a powerful suitcase bomb at the Los Angeles airport during the millennium celebration.
Ressam was arrested Dec. 14, 1999, in Port Angeles, coming off the ferry from Victoria, B.C. Inspectors found powders and liquids in the trunk of his rental car that turned out to be the makings of a powerful bomb. The investigation showed Ressam had been recruited by al-Qaida in Montreal and had trained in Osama bin Laden-sponsored terrorism camps in Afghanistan.
Among those in the federal courtroom in Seattle this morning was Gordon Haberman, whose 25-year-old daughter, Andrea, died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, said he was disappointed in the sentence given to Ressam.
Haberman, who traveled to Seattle from Wisconsin for the sentencing, called Ressam a coward and attempted killer.
“He meant to kill a lot of people,” said Haberman.
No matter:
Three years ago, Coughenour handed Ressam the first 22-year sentence, less than the 35 years sought by the government and a decade longer than the sentence his defense team wanted imposed. If sentenced to maximum terms on all nine felonies he was convicted of, Ressam was looking at 130 years.
Following his conviction, Ressam cooperated with the government to win a lower sentence.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, he provided rare and unparalleled insight into the inner workings of al Qaida and its presence in North America. However, after years in solitary confinement and repeated interrogations, he stopped talking in 2003.
What a mess. But not a surprise. Coughenour is a terrorists’ little helper who engaged in brazen grandstanding during Ressam’s sentencing in 2005 — using the occasion to pat himself on the back, express his opposition to military tribunals and detention of enemy combatants, and argue in support of applying the full panoply of constitutional rights to foreign al Qaeda conspirators.
Such are the perils of using the Ally McBeal approach to fighting terrorism.
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Categories: Ally McBeal approach, Homeland Security, Jihadists, Terrorist attacks
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Judge Coughenour when, not if (thanks to you), your little experiment is back on the streets and returns to his life of jihad, you, sir, will have blood on your hands. I hope you can live with that.
That’s probably what he’s hoping for.
22 years is a long time in prison. My hope is that he is wandering around in the general prison population and that something interesting happens when the guards are looking the other way. And my hope is that what ever happens involves the use of pig’s blood.
It might be a long time if he were to actually serve anywhere near that long. He probably won’t .
Assuming he actually serves the whole sentence. I’ll believe that when I see it.
I’d share that hope. Unfortunately I think it’s far more likely that he’d be able to recruit prisoners than it is he’d be killed by them. If he absolutely must continue to draw breath at our expense it should be in a 23-hour lockdown supermax. 22 years with no one buy allah to speak to would be entirely appropriate.
Okay, lets just leave him in jail for 22 years with nothing but pig products to eats and a room mate called bubba with a huge, ahem, shoe size.
Forget 35 yrs in prison–he should have been executed the moment he was nabbed.
Am I the only one that sees past the Terrorist scare?
This is a REALLY BAD precedence. You have the right to not speak a word to the Government. You are found guilty, great, serve the sentence you deserve. To add extra time because you would not be bullied smacks of political prisoner.
Congress set sentencing guidelines for a reason. It was to keep out of control prosecutors from adding extra punishment for personal or political reasons.
Legal costs to free Ahmed Ressam - $386,158
Air fare back to Mideast - $1,373
Welcome Home dinner at safe house - $328
Orbiting armed Predator drone - $15,000,000
Video of Maverick impact - Priceless
if we mandate these judges take fiscal if not personal liability for these miscreants they will stop letting them out. you want to release a murderer, how about we place him in your home judge for his halfway house experience. don’t you have a corner in your basement he can crash?
flyoverman–indeed.
Another example of Islam, and another example of the enemy within.
The enemy within is a term used by Dr. Savage.
who engaged in brazen grandstanding during Ressam’s sentencing in 1995 —
should read:
who engaged in brazen grandstanding during Ressam’s sentencing in 2005 —
I’m sure Obama/CAIR/DNC attorney Joe Sandler will convince Obama to pardon him in a few years.
It would be par for the course considering Obama’s AG Eric Holder sided with the Clinton terrorist pardon’s.
Once we used to hang people like that. Now, we let them play games with us, and get off cheap. Must not upset the criminal. The heck with the victims or the crime.
publiuswarmac999/sonofdy:
Great ideas. We should also make sure that any Jewish prisoners get nothing but pork and shellfish to eat. And that Catholic prisoners don’t get communion, and that all Christian prisoners get copies of Piss-Christ hung in their cells.
Being a religious bigot is fun!!
Anyone murdering, or planning to blow up Airports in the name of Christ, is not a Christian.
Anyone murdering in the name of allah the false moon god is following the example of Mohamed. A mad man who raped, and murdered, and being a Dam good Muslim.
ROPMA!
But NOT in the service of Allah…this is just a long-term missionary assignment. How many converts can he make among the “young, poor, overlooked, disenfranchised” inmate population? God knows he won’t be in isolation where he can be alone with his Master.
As for the judge…there’s that old Arabic curse that’s appropropriate; “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits forever!”
You’re right. None of the Crusaders were Christians. Nor were those who carried out the Inquisition. Nor those who came to the New World and tried to convert the natives by force.
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour needs to be on OUR terrorist watch list.
vargas,
What evil men did in the name of religion in the past does not excuse Muslims today.
Folks who consider themselves Christian can not murder in Christ’s name. They can defend themselves if attacked. By defending themselves, they can not go to a Hotel, and murder women, and children related to their attacker.
Allah wants, and requires Muslims to murder in his name. The G-d of Noah died for me.
Snarky. PC History here. Try reading the Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).
Palestine/Israel was indeed a Christian land over run by muslims-far from being multi-cultural the muslims pulled down many of the Christian Churches, converted other to mosques and barred Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem. The Christians there were reduced to Dhimmi as per muslim law.
The Christian Crusades to to Jerusalem were at least as justified as the allies Crusade in Europe of June 1944.
Yes the Crusades were brutal battles with no quarter given–such was the case with warfare at the time - often still is. Brutal? Try the muslim Turk conquest of Anatolia, the Balkans and Constantinople. Or try the Iberian Conquest.
The muslims do not kill Christians, Jews, Hindu, Buddhists and pagans because of what is done to them-they kill as Mohammed told them to. Go ahead and ride your high horse–but learn some history–the NON-PC type.
Snark.
There’s justice in the world people…
Ressam will be out of jail before Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean will be.
/sarc
Some German saboteurs landed in New Jersey during WW2 with explosives and plans to attack our country. Franklin Roosevelt had most of them tried, convicted, and sent to the electric chair within a year.
***
Why should we treat this type of enemy of our country in time of war any differently? The traditional hanging of spies / saboteurs is the way to go. Let’s see a judge or lawyer reverse that verdict and sentence.
***
Rocketman
Imagine this kind of action by the nitwit judge taking place on a daily basis if the idiots on the left get their way, and Gitmo is closed.
The warm and fuzzy little residents of Gitmo placed in US jails, and supplied lawyers paid for by taxpayers. It would be a jobs program for lefty hack lawyers, rotating in and out of court for years trying or appealing any little detail that might get the innocent jihadis off.
Eventually, and as they always do, the left will put those involved in the capture of those at Gitmo on trial for violating the rights of someone trying to kill non-Muslims.
Heaven forfend we have to rely on an open, unbiased system of due process that’s been a part of the Anglo-Saxon tradition for close to a thousand years.
Unbiased does not equal blind. When someone attempts to kill hundreds or thousands of people and would certainly try it again if released, it would be the height of leftist ignorance to not take that into consideration when sentencing.