Y2K Bomb Suspect Convicted

After brief deliberations, a federal jury Friday found an Algerian man guilty of plotting terrorist attacks against millennium celebrations in the United States.

Ahmed Ressam had pleaded not guilty to nine counts. He faces up to 130 years in prison.

Ressam was arrested in Washington state in December of 1999 by U.S. Customs inspectors after he arrived by ferry from Canada.

The government alleges that bomb-making materials found in his rental car were intended for attacks on West Coast sites, possibly during millennium celebrations.

Ressam's arrest, prompted Seattle officials to cancel the city's millennium celebration at the Space Needle. It also put other U.S. cities on edge on New Year's Eve.

Authorities say the bomb plot may have included targets in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas as well, and Ressam's capture led to the arrests of two alleged co-conspirators in Montreal and Brooklyn, NY.

The verdict came the same day a French court sentenced Ressam to five years in prison for belonging to a support network for Islamic militants. He was also banned permanently from French territory by the Paris court, where he was tried in absentia.

The American jury, which got the case Thursday afternoon, sent Judge John Coughenour a note Friday to ask for a numbered list of evidence exhibits and descriptions of the items. The request was granted.

During the trial, Prosecutors tried to paint Ressam as a determined terrorist who conspired with others to carry out violent acts.

The defense, however, suggests he was an unwitting courier. Defense lawyers say Ressam was incapable of carrying out sophisticated plots and was the victim of a co-defendant who "shadowed him every step of the way."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry Diskin, summing up the case against Ressam, replayed for jurors a videotape of a blast created to simulate what would have happened if explosives found in the trunk of Ressam's car at the U.S.-Canadian border had been detonated.

The defense called only six witnesses, two of them to say Ressam apparently had plane reservations to leave Seattle en route to London the day after he was arrested. The defense suggested that would show he was an unwitting courier of the explosives and had no plans to use them.

The prosecution rested its case Tuesday. Prosecutors built their case on a complex mosaic of testimony that took three weeks to present.

The prosecution case ended much as it had begun, with admission into evidence of key pieces of physical evidence — a guide book, fingerprints of Ressam, and addresses and phone numbers in a datebook.

The prosecution said it did not intend to prove specific sites were targeted, but noted evidence suggesting West Coast landmarks as well as three airports in California, including Los Angeles, had been considered.

The weakest portion of the federal case in Los Angeles was prosecutors' efforts to prove a globl conspiracy in which Ressam was supposedly a key player.

They were prevented from ever mentioning the name of Osama bin Laden or making any references to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials believe Ressam was trained in those camps. Bin Laden is the alleged mastermind of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.

The prosecution's key witness, Abdel Ghani Meskini, gave jurors some hints of the connections between himself and other Algerian refugees but he said he had never met Ressam.

Last month, Meskini, 33, who was indicted for helping Ressam cross into Washington state from Canada, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with authorities.

Meskini's testimony suggested Pakistan was a route to Afghanistan and its training camps, and prosecutors were able to introduce plane tickets showing that Ressam went to Pakistan in 1998.

Mokhtar Haouari, another Algerian arrested in Canada following Ressam's arrest, is awaiting trial in New York.

Jordanian authorities this week named two more fugitive suspects linked to a terrorist conspiracy to stage attacks in the United States and Israel during millennium celebrations. Six men have already been sentenced to death in the case.

The Paris trial drew a picture of a web of Islamic militants with unclear connections who cross paths around the world. Ressam was among two dozen people who stood trial. Seventeen were handed sentences of between six years and 16 months.

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