Peninsula Daily News and The Associated Press
The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to intervene in what federal prosecutors say is a procedural gaffe that led to a too-lenient sentence for a terrorist who brought explosive devices into Port Angeles in 1999.
A federal appellate court’s decision to toss one of the charges against Ahmed Ressam – an Algerian national who trained in one of the Afghanistan camps of Osama bin Laden before going to Canada – could “significantly diminish” the government’s ability to prosecute terrorists, the Justice Department wrote Thursday in asking the Supreme Court to take the case.
Ressam was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2005 after being convicted on nine counts for plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport around Jan. 1, 2000 – more than 1½ years before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and outside of Washington, D.C.
Prosecutors had asked for at least 35 years in federal prison.
