PORT ANGELES — Four Customs inspectors on duty when Algerian-born terrorist Ahmed Ressam was captured in Port Angeles 10 years ago said they were heartened by a federal court’s ruling on Tuesday that overturned Ressam’s 22-year prison sentence as being too lenient.
“My first thought was what it has always been, that he got 22 years for what he was planning to do, and that was just obscene,” former Customs Inspector Diana Dean said Tuesday afternoon in a telephone interview from her North Dakota home.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco also removed U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour of Seattle from the case, saying he committed key procedural errors at Ressam’s sentencing hearing and that Coughenour’s “previously expressed views appear too entrenched to allow for the appearance of fairness.”
A new judge will be assigned to the case within three weeks, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.
In its 2-1 ruling, the court said that Coughenour erred in several ways when he sentenced Ressam on Dec. 3, 2008, to 22 years in prison, despite prosecutors seeking a life term.
The court said Coughenour ignored federal sentencing guidelines, did not explain why he rejected arguments on the value of Ressam’s cooperation and the impact of his recantation, that he adopted defense attorneys’ views on Ressam’s life history that were contradicted by facts, and that he was mistaken in rejecting the argument that a longer sentence was justified to protect the public from Ressam.
The court also ruled that Ressam, an al-Qaida-trained terrorist known as the Millennium Bomber, deserved a longer sentence because he went back on a promise to provide information on terrorists throughout the world.
Because of Tuesday’s ruling, Ressam, 41, now faces 65 years to life in prison.
On Dec. 14, 1999, Ressam, carrying a fake Canadian passport and driving a rented late-model Chrysler, boarded the MV Coho ferry in Victoria.
He was heading to Port Angeles with 100 pounds of explosive materials hidden in the trunk’s wheelwell and a plan to detonate at least one bomb at Los Angeles International Airport.
Explosives not detected until arrival
The explosives were not detected by a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Agent who searched the car on the Canadian side.
But when Ressam arrived in Port Angeles at about 5:30 p.m. and disembarked in the last vehicle, Dean became suspicious of his nervous, sweaty demeanor.
She ordered his car searched.
Customs inspectors rummaged through the trunk, discovering 118 pounds of urea fertilizer, sulfate powder, four timing devices and pill bottles of explosive materials, including one with an oily liquid more volatile than nitroglycerin.
When they led Ressam to the car for an explanation, he slipped out of his coat and fled through downtown Port Angeles.
Five to 10 minutes later, he was tackled at the intersection of First and Lincoln streets by then-Inspector and now-Clallam County Commissioner Mike Chapman.
‘Destruction, death’
“I do not want people to forget what this guy was planning on doing, what was his ultimate goal,” Chapman said Tuesday.
“It was to bring destruction and death to the citizens of the United States.”
Chapman, who testified at Ressam’s trial, said Ressam showed no remorse at the proceedings or when Customs inspectors were searching the trunk of his car, unaware of the danger it held.
“I do not have a lot of remorse for him by any stretch,” Chapman said.
Dan Clem, a retired Clallam County deputy prosecutor and now a part-time county assistant district attorney in Oklahoma, also chased after Ressam.
A life sentence for Ressam “wouldn’t bother me,” Clem said in a telephone interview Tuesday, adding that resentencing opens up the process to appeal.
“I hope it stands up,” Clem said. “It’s not over yet.”
Former Customs Inspector Steve Campbell, on duty when Ressam was apprehended and now a part-time Clallam County Superior Court bailiff, recalled that Ressam had agreed to cooperate with investigators after Ressam was convicted in 2001 of nine mostly terrorism- and explosives-related charges.
Ressam supplied information on terrorists from 2001 to 2008, then claimed he was “mentally incompetent” when he provided the information.
Two terrorism-related prosecutions were terminated after he recanted his testimony.
“I’ve always thought that he hadn’t cooperated all that much,” Campbell said.
“The years he got were not commensurate to what the possible deed could have been.”
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@ peninsuladailynews.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
