Court: Sentence for millennium plotter too lenient

By PAUL ELIAS,
Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO – The long legal battle of an al-Qaida-trained terrorist convicted in an attempted bombing on the millennium has taken another turn after an appeals court threw out his sentence and removed the trial judge from the case.

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday said Ahmed Ressam's 22-year prison sentence is too lenient. Border agents in Washington state arrested the Algerian national in 1999 after he entered the United States from Canada on a ferry with a car packed with explosives. He was convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport.

The appeals court also said Tuesday that it's taking the rare step of assigning the case to another trial judge because it doubts U.S. District Judge John Coughenour's impartiality in the matter.

Coughenour presided over the case for a decade. Twice, over the objections of prosecutors, he sentenced the "millennium bomber" to 22 years in prison.

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