Prosecutors appeal Ressam sentence

P-I STAFF

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle appealed Tuesday the 22-year sentence imposed on convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam.

An alert customs officer in Port Angeles thwarted Ressam's plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium holiday rush in 1999 when she stopped him as he drove off the Victoria ferry with a trunk full of explosives.

An appeals court sent the case back to U.S. District Judge John Coughenour for resentencing because of his failure at Ressam's original sentencing in 2005 to clearly enumerate how he had calculated Ressam's sentence under federal guidelines. Coughenour rejected a request from prosecutors at a Dec. 3 hearing that Ressam be sentenced to life in prison because he has stopped cooperating with investigators, instead re-imposing a 22-year sentence.

At the time, prosecutors said they intended to appeal.