Mr. Ressam was arrested 12.14.99 by U.S. Customs inspectors at Port Angeles, Wash., after arriving on a ferry from Canada. Prosecutors said bomb-making materials found in his rental car were intended for attacks on West Coast sites, possibly during millennium celebrations. However, they did not try to prove specific targets. Mr. Ressam's defense called him an unwitting courier and blamed a co-defendant, Abdelmajid Dahoumane, who is in custody in Algeria and will be tried there on charges of participating in terrorist organizations. Members of the jury here deliberated for just over 10 hours during 2 days. When Judge John C. Coughenour of U.S. District Court polled them to ask if this was their individual decision, each one answered, "Yes." "You are one of the nicest and most attentive juries I've had in 20 years," the judge told them. "It makes me proud to be an American." Jurors declined a request to speak to reporters and were taken out the back of the courthouse.
In addition to terrorism, Mr. Ressam was found guilty of placing an explosive in proximity to a ferry
terminal, using false identification documents, smuggling, transporting explosives and carrying an
explosive during the commission of a felony. The jurors also found that his actions were committed
in connection with a crime of violence. In Paris, Mr. Ressam was given a 5 year prison sentence
after being tried in absentia. That trial drew a picture of a web of Islamic militants with unclear
connections who cross paths around the world. Mr. Ressam was among 2 dozen people who
stood trial. Seventeen were handed sentences of between 6 years and 16 months. U.S. officials
believe Mr. Ressam was trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan and is linked to Osama bin
Laden, reportedly the mastermind of the 1998 bombings of United States embassies in Africa. But
prosecutors were barred from bringing Mr. bin Laden's name into the trial for lack of proof.
The prosecution did bring in testimony by Abdel Ghani Meskini, an Algerian who was seized in
New York after Mr. Ressam's arrest. Mr. Meskini pleaded guilty to conspiracy last month and
agreed to cooperate. Mr. Meskini's testimony pointed to Pakistan as a route to Afghanistan and its training camps, and
prosecutors were able to introduce plane tickets showing that Mr. Ressam went to Pakistan in
1998. Mokhtar Haouari, another Algerian, arrested in Canada after Mr. Ressam's arrest, is
awaiting trial in New York. Mr. Ressam's federal trial was transferred to Los Angeles
because of widespread publicity in Washington State.
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Suspect in New Year's Terror Plot Is Arrested in Algeria
12.7.00 Judith Miller NYTimes
Officials said that the Algerian police have been questioning Dahoumane not only about his activities with Ressam before the millennial celebrations in Canada & the U.S., but also about his possible links to a terrorist network believed to be headed by Osama binLaden, whom the U.S. has accused of the 1998 bombing of two embassies in Africa in which more than 200 people died or at least his knowledge of the network. American officials suspect that bin Laden's group was involved in assisting Ressam & his alleged conspirators with attempted terrorism in the U.S. and with a separate bombing plot in Jordan. But officials said that information collected so far about binLaden's possible involvement in the American plot was inconclusive.
According to administration officials, Dahoumane has not provided much information either
about the millennium bombing plot or whatever ties to Laden's group he may have had. A
State Dept spokesman declined to comment today on whether the U.S. had sought
Dahoumane's extradition. Law enforcement officials declined today to confirm his legal status.
Ressam is scheduled to stand trial in March in Los Angeles. Abdel Ghani Meskini &
Mokhtar Haouari, two other alleged accomplices in the case, will be tried in New York later next
year on charges of conspiring to support a terrorist group and to conceal support for Ressam.
American investigators have been repeatedly frustrated in their efforts to find out what the
Algerians intended to blow up in the U.S. and when they planned to act. A year into the
investigation, American officials & investigators said, they were still uncertain how many
bombs Ressam & his colleagues had been planning to detonate or their exact itinerary in
the U.S.
Neither Ressam nor the other Algerians indicted in Seattle or New York have shed light on
such critical issues as what if any assistance they received from binLaden's group, which is
based in Afghanistan, officials said. Early in the investigation, American & Canadian
investigators uncovered what they believed were links between binLaden & the Algerians
charged with plotting the terrorist attack in the U.S. Last January, for instance, authorities in
Mauritania, at U.S. request, detained Mohambedou Ould Slahi, brother-in-law of one of bin
Laden's lieutenants. Officials suspected that Slahi had traveled to Canada to direct
Ressam & his Algerian group in Canada in their effort to enter the U.S. to commit terrorism.
But Slahi was eventually released & disappeared after the American officials decided that
they lacked sufficient evidence to charge him with a crime and to request his extradition.
Officials said they had no specific evidence that binLaden set the American bombing plot in
motion. But investigators said they had found several ties between members of the American
bombing plot and binLaden's worldwide network. Officials disclosed, for example, that one of
the men charged in the American millennium bombing case had a roommate who was associated
with an Islamic charity that prosecutors said played a role in the embassy bombings in Africa, with
which binLaden has been charged. MidEast & U.S. officials say they believe that one of
binLaden's lieutenants, Abu Zubaydah, helped coordinate a terrorist plot that was aimed at
Western & Israeli tourists in Jordan late last December. Officials said that they believed that
the same lieutenant was also in contact with the Algerian group, some of whose members were
charged in the bombing plot aimed at the unspecified targets in the U.S. But it is still not clear
whether Zubaydah played an active role in that plot, these officials say.
Last January, a federal grand jury in Seattle charged Dahoumane with crossing a national
boundary and conspiring among other things to "destroy or damage structures, conveyances or
other real or personal property." Officials said that while both Ressam & Dahoumane
entered the U.S. from Canada, they traveled separately.
5.30.01 Josh Meyer L.A.Times
… Ahmed Ressam, 33, who refused to tell authorities anything for 17 months after his arrest, admitted his
terrorism plans in recent weeks, according to sources familiar with the case. … He was convicted 4.6.01 on
9 counts of conspiring to commit an act of international terrorism and related charges. Ressam, an Algerian
national, … expected to receive a lighter sentence in exchange for his continuing cooperation in the ongoing
investigation of a Montreal-based group of Islamic extremists and that group's alleged ties to suspected terrorist
leader Osama bin Laden, sources said. … Sentencing for Ressam is scheduled for June 28, but delays are
now expected given Ressam's cooperation. Authorities, including the FBI and federal prosecutors, would not
confirm Ressam's admissions or his agreement to cooperate with them. Ressam's chief public defender, Thomas
Hillier, said, "I'm not commenting on anything."
… upcoming prosecution in New York of one of his alleged co-conspirators, Mokhtar Haouari, also of
Montreal, stands trial June 26 on charges of plotting to help Ressam and two other Algerian nationals "punish
America" by blowing up unspecified U.S. targets on or about New Year's Day 2000. Ressam is expected to be the
government's key witness against Haouari. Tue., Haouari lawyer Daniel Ollen said authorities have not told him that
Ressam will be a witness. Ollen added: "It's one thing being a terrorist. It's another to be a terrorist and a rat."
Roland Thau, a New York public defender representing another alleged Ressam co-conspirator, said he was
"surprised Ressam hadn't started down that road [to cooperating with authorities] a long time ago." Thau
represents Abdelghani Meskini, who testified against Ressam as part of his own plea agreement.
During Ressam's trial in Los Angeles in March, Meskini testified that Haouari told him to travel from New York to
Seattle to meet Ressam and provide him with logistical and financial support. Ressam was arrested before the two
could meet, so Meskini had limited knowledge of the overall workings of the bomb plot, authorities have said.
But Ressam and Haouari are said to be associates, so Ressam's agreement to testify against him "should be
devastating to Haouari," Thau said. Ressam is also expected to provide authorities with an important missing piece
of the bomb conspiracy puzzle, and the roles played by an alleged co-conspirator who has never been caught,
Abdelmajid Dahoumane. Until now, federal investigators had no idea what Ressam was planning when he was
arrested Dec. 14, 1999, at a remote ferry landing in Port Angeles, Wash.
U.S. authorities, suspicious of Ressam's nervous behavior, had stopped him as he drove his car off a ferry from
Canada. They found about 130 pounds of explosives in the trunk of his rental car, along with four homemade timing
devices. They later learned Ressam had reserved a motel room near Seattle's Space Needle, the site of a planned
millennium party. At trial, defense lawyers said Ressam was an unwitting courier who either didn't know what was
in the trunk of his car or didn't know its significance. Prosecutors said Ressam clearly helped buy & assemble
the bomb components. They said the explosives, including a rare military compound, were powerful
enough to "easily take down a building." But they conceded that they never knew Ressam's target, suggesting at
his trial that he was considering attacking the Space Needle, the Transamerica tower in San Francisco, or possibly
a S. California airport.
Tour book of California was found in Ressam's rental car, with his fingerprints on photographs of downtown Los
Angeles and the Transamerica tower, prosecutors told the jury. And, Canadian authorities found a map of S.
California in Ressam's Montreal apartment after his arrest, with circles around LAX, Long Beach and Ontario
airports. Prosecutors said that they didn't know if those were targets. Authorities are also interested in Ressam's
alleged links to other terrorists, including his knowledge of Bin Laden-financed military camps, which he
attended in 1998
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Ressam confirms millennium plot
L.A. airport was target
5.30.01 M. Carter & S. Miletich Seattle Times
Meantime, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell canceled the city's New Year's Eve celebration. Federal-court papers had
stated that Ressam had intended to leave his explosives-laden rental car in a hotel parking lot, keys left in the
ignition, in the shadow of the Space Needle, the site of the planned millennium party and the city's most distinctive
landmark. Schell was both criticized and praised for the decision. Schell is in Stockholm with the Chamber of
Commerce. The mayor's spokesman, Dick Lilly, said he had no comment on the information. "This is the first I've
heard of it," Lilly said. Ressam's trial was moved to Los Angeles from Seattle because of publicity and security
concerns. After the map was found in Ressam's apartment, prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge John
Coughenour to reconsider the change of venue, but he declined.
During the trial, prosecutors introduced evidence that they said hinted that Ressam may have had targets in
California. There was the map with circles drawn around the three L.A.-area airports and a French tourism book
with Ressam's fingerprint found on a photograph of the pyramid-shape TransAmerica building in San Francisco.
Defense attorneys discounted the evidence, and the government acknowledged that the circles around the airports
went unnoticed for several months. Defense attorneys suggested that Canadian authorities may have added them
and that Ressam was a dupe of other terrorists and had only limited knowledge of what was in the trunk of his car
or how it was to be used once he got it across the border.
… Ressam agreed to break his silence and provide information on the plot to federal prosecutors both here and in New York, sources confirmed. Canadian and French authorities also are monitoring the talks. … During the trial, prosecutors linked Ressam to a terrorist cell in Montreal, but a federal judge limited their introduction of evidence that tied him to the organization of Osama bin Laden, a Saudi multimillionaire who is suspected of backing several terrorist attacks against U.S. targets. Ressam attended bin Laden-financed terrorist training camps in Afghanistan in 1998, and several of his former roommates are in custody in France and England in connection with terrorist plots. Indeed, on the same day he was convicted in L.A., Ressam also was convicted in absentia and sentenced to five years in prison in France for his involvement in the terrorist "Roubaix Gang," suspected of bank robberies and bombings in Paris and Belgium.
Evidence seen linking binLaden & Algerian group
1.27.00 David Johnston, Judith Miller &
Wm K. Rashbaum NYTimes
