LA Airport Bomb Plotter to Be Resentenced

The prison term for the “Millennium Bomber” who plotted to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport on Dec. 31, 1999, was overturned by a federal appeals court on Monday and he will receive a new sentence.
LA Airport Bomb Plotter to Be Resentenced
3/12/2012
Updated:
3/12/2012

The prison term for the “Millennium Bomber” who plotted to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport on Dec. 31, 1999, was overturned by a federal appeals court on Monday and he will receive a new sentence.

Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national, will receive a longer sentence than the 22 years that was handed down after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave its ruling. The judges in the case said his sentence was too lenient.

“We have a definite and firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of
judgment in sentencing Ressam as it did,” the court said in its ruling.

“As a result, we conclude that the sentence imposed by the district court was substantively unreasonable. We vacate the sentence and remand the case to the district court for resentencing,” it added.

Ressam was arrested at the U.S.-Canada border with his vehicle’s trunk loaded full of explosives in 1999.