The Associated Press and Peninsula Daily News
SEATTLE — The Algerian terrorist arrested in Port Angeles the month before the new millennium in a rental car packed with explosives is scheduled to be sentenced by a federal judge for the third time next month.
The difference this time?
Ahmed Ressam is expected to get more than 22 years when he is sentenced Oct. 24.
Twice before, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour has sentenced Ressam to 22-year terms for his plan to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. An alert Customs inspector in Port Angeles noticed that Ressam appeared suspicious when he drove off the MV Coho ferry from Victoria on Dec. 16, 1999, and signaled him out for further inspection.
He was captured by two other Customs inspectors after he bolted into downtown Port Angeles on foot.
Each of Coughenour’s sentences was struck down after prosecutors appealed. Most recently the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that 22 years was simply too low for the mass murder Ressam tried to commit.