July 27, 2005

Would-be airport bomber gets 22 years

The man convicted of plotting to blow up the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium was sentenced Wednesday to 22 years in prison.

Ahmed Ressam got a lighter sentence than prosecutors had requested, reflecting his cooperation in telling international investigators about the workings of terror camps in Afghanistan.
[This is what happens when we pursue terrorism like a domestic crime. Pathetic.
This killer wanted to kill thousands and would have had a sharp U.S. border agent not caught him with the bombs.--Jen]

But Ressam, 38, could have received a shorter sentence had he not stopped talking to investigators in early 2003. Prosecutors argued that his recalcitrance has jeopardized cases against two of his co-conspirators.

In sentencing Ressam, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said he hoped to balance U.S. resolve to punish potential terrorist acts with Ressam's cooperation. Coughenour also said he hoped to send a message that the U.S. court system works in terrorism cases.
[I'm sad to say that President Reagan appointed this guy.
The U.S. court system does not "work" in terrorism cases and this case is a case in point.
This is the reason we have Gitmo and why terror detainees will be tried under a military tribunal, not a domestic criminal court where the trend has been to give lighter and lighter sentences and where they treat terrorists as if they were pedophiles and we're none too happy about how lenient they are with child molesters, either.]

"We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely or deny the defendant the right to counsel. ... Our courts have not abandoned the commitment to the ideals that set this nation apart," he said.
[That would be fine, Judge, if this man were an American citizen, but he's far from it!
He's an Algerian IslamoFascist murderer who had the intent to kill thousands of us and deprive us of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the real ideals that set this nation apart.--J.T.]

Ressam, an Algerian, was arrested in Port Angeles in December 1999 as he drove off a ferry from British Columbia with a trunk full of bomb-making materials.
[Just like the Islamist mass killers in Britain who bombed London on 7/7.]
[...]

Coughenour and federal prosecutors want Ressam to testify against his two co-conspirators, Samir Ait Mohamed and Abu Doha, who are awaiting extradition from Canada and Britain, respectively.

Information provided by Ressam in the past was given to anti-terrorism field agents around the world -- in one case, helping to prevent the mishandling and potential detonation of the shoe bomb that Richard Reid attempted to blow up aboard an American Airlines flight in December 2001, Hillier[Ressam's Lefty ACLU-loving lawyer] said.
['Scuse me, but it was the brave flight attendants and passengers on that flight who kept Richard Reid from lighting his shoes and blowing up the plane!--Jen]

This slimebucket should have gotten life, if not the death penalty.
22 years won't be that long---he could be out in 13-14 years with "good behavior."
As long as these butchers can work our system(s), they will.
The Brits are now finding out first hand how impotent and ineffective it can be to pursue, prosecute and punish terrorist killers as domestic criminals with "civil rules" can be.
PM Tony Blair is even fighting with his wife about it in public!

Don't let it escape your attention, also, that this killer came in through the Canadian border;
we need to secure both the Mexican and Canadian borders!

Let's do something to make sure this velvet glove treatment of terrorists will stop!
What say you, America?
And for pity's sake, let's keep Gitmo going and the ACLU lawyers away from the detainees!
We need to add a provision to the Patriot Act that requires that all non-U.S. citizens charged with terrorism be remanded to custody at Gitmo for military trial and incarceration there.