PORT ANGELES — Two of four Customs inspectors who were on duty when terrorist Ahmed Ressam was captured in Port Angeles 12 years ago say a federal appeals court did the right thing Monday when it voted to overturn Ressam’s 22-year prison sentence as unreasonably lenient.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled Monday 7-4 in favor of the government’s appeal of the sentence, which was twice imposed by Seattle U.S. District Judge John Coughenour after it was appealed. The court then sent the case back to a federal judge for resentencing.
Coughenour “committed a clear error of judgment in sentencing Ressam,” the majority opinion said.
“As a result, we conclude that the sentence imposed by the district court was substantively unreasonable.”
Clallam County Commissioner Mike Chapman was on duty as a part-time customs inspector Dec. 14, 1999, and had yet to run for county office when Ressam disembarked from the MV Coho in a late-model rented Chrysler laden with bomb-making materials.
The court’s decision is “good news,” Chapman said Monday.
“The U.S. attorneys are trying to do the best job they can to protect us and keep this guy behind bars.”
When inspectors discovered the trunk of Ressam’s car contained four timers and 100 pounds of bomb ingredients, Ressam jolted out of an inspector’s grasp and sprinted through downtown Port Angeles.
Chapman shoulder-tackled Ressam, then 32, at Port Angeles’ First Street-Lincoln Street intersection in darkness that late afternoon, bringing Ressam’s flight to a halt.
Investigators later learned that Ressam — an Algerian national who had attended Osama bin Laden’s terrorist training camps in Afghanistan — was on his way to bomb a Los Angeles International Airport passenger terminal on Jan. 1, 2000.
Ressam, who became nicknamed the “Millennium Bomber,” was sentenced to 22 years on nine criminal counts.
Sentencing guidelines called for a sentence of 65 years to life, but federal prosecutors had suggested 35 years after Ressam gave prosecutors information on al-Qaida based on the three training camps Ressam had attended.
Then Ressam stopped cooperating.
“He had made that choice,” Chapman said.
“If he was cooperating, it would have kept us safe, too. When he stopped cooperating, that meant he should pay for his crimes.”
Former Customs Inspector Dan Clem, now a lawyer in Oklahoma, agreed Monday that the sentence was too lenient.
“Theoretically, he could have killed hundreds of people and maimed hundreds more,” Clem said Monday.
Tom Hillier is the federal public defender who argued the case before the appellate court in Seattle.
“Obviously, I’m disappointed that we have to go through another sentencing,” he said.
“It’s been a long haul for Ahmed. But when it comes to terrorism cases, there are some fairly strong opinions on what should be [the sentence].”
Hillier said the judge will have to impose a sentence longer than 22 years but the appellate court did not specify any specific length.
Chapman, Clem, Customs Inspector Diana M. Dean, who no longer is a Customs inspector, and Customs Inspector Mark Johnson, who could not be reached for comment Monday, received exceptional service medals for their efforts on the day Ressam was captured.
It marked the first time a terrorist had entered the United States with explosives and a plan to wreak mayhem on U.S. citizens.
Twenty-one months after Ressam’s capture in a busy downtown Port Angeles intersection, nearly 3,000 people would die in four coordinated al-Qaida attacks on New York City and the Washington, D.C., area in a day now known an 9/11.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.