Ahmed Ressam: Difference between revisions

Ahmed Ressam (Arabic: احمد رسام; also Benni Noris^[4] or the Millennium Bomber; born (1967-05-09)May 9, 1967, in Dualdua, Algeria) is a Muslim Algerian al-Qaeda member^[7] who lived in Canada.^[3][5]

He was convicted of attempting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on New Year's Eve 1999, as part of the foiled 2000 millennium attack plots.^[8][9] He was initially sentenced to 22 years in prison, but in February 2010 an appellate court found his sentence to be too lenient and ordered that it be extended.^[10]

The eldest of seven children, Ressam grew up in a town west of Algiers, and graduated high school in 1988.^[11][5] Over the next four years he worked with his father in a coffee shop.^[5]

He left Algeria on September 5, 1992, entering France on a false Moroccan passport in the name of "Nassar Ressam".^[9][6] He was arrested on immigration violations in Corsica, a "territorial collectivity" of France, in November 1993, and France deported him to Morocco on November 8, 1993, and banned him from returning for three years.^[9][1] Morocco determined that he was not in fact Moroccan, however, and returned him to France.^[9] Faced with a March 1994 hearing, he instead chose to fly to Canada.^[6]

Ressam entered Canada on February 20, 1994, using a fake, illegally altered French passport in the name of "Anjer Tahar Medjadi".^[9][12] When immigration officials at the Montréal-Mirabel International Airport confronted him about the altered passport and arrested him, he divulged his real name and applied for refugee status.^[9] In his effort to obtain political asylum, he told the Canadian authorities a false story about having been subjected to Algerian abuse and torture.^[13][1] He was released pending a hearing, and given three years of welfare benefits.^[11][6] His application for refugee status was denied on June 6, 1995, and his appeal was denied, and on May 4, 1998, a warrant was issued for his arrest by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.^[9] At the time the warrant was issued, however, he was in Afghanistan, attending a terrorist training camp. He evaded deportation by obtaining a Canadian passport in March 1998 using a stolen blank baptismal certificate with the fake name, "Benni Antoine Noris."^[1]

Settling in east Montreal, he lived with other Algerian immigrants in an apartment building on Avenue Malicorne later identified by Canadian and international police as the headquarters of a Montreal cell connected to Osama bin Laden's network (the "GIA", or Armed Islamic Group).^{[13][1][11][14]} He supported himself by theft, stealing tourists' suitcases at hotels, pickpocketing, shoplifting, and through welfare benefits of $500 per month.^[13][1] He was arrested four times, but never jailed.^[13][1] By 1999, he had a Canadian criminal history for theft under $5,000, an outstanding Canada-wide immigration arrest warrant, and a British Columbia-wide arrest warrant for theft under $5,000.^[3]

In Montreal, he was recruited into al-Qaeda.^[15] According to Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials, he was under surveillance as part of an investigation into a suspected terrorist ring from 1996 until he left the country.^[11]

Ressam became friends with Raouf Hannachi, alleged to be a member of al-Qaeda, who served as the muezzin at Montreal's Assuna Mosque, which attracted almost 1,500 mostly Algerian worshipers to Friday prayers.^[5][1][6] Hannachi returned from Afghanistan towards the end of the summer of 1997, where he had trained for jihad at Khalden Camp. He told Ressam about the experience and jihad, encouraged him to train as well, and ultimately arranged a trip to the camp for Ressam.^[5] Ressam traveled to Afghanistan with his roommate Mustapha Labsi.^[16][6]

On March 17, 1998, interested in joining jihad in Algeria, he traveled using a passport obtained fraudulently from Montreal to Karachi, Pakistan, using the name "Benni Noris".^[5][9] There, he contacted Abu Zubeida in Peshawar, Pakistan, who was in charge of the Afghan terrorist training camps funded and organized by Bin Laden.^[9][13][11] Abu Zubeida approved him, and arranged for him to be transported over the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan in April.^[9][13][11] Using the alias "Nabil", he attended three camps for Islamic terrorists between March 1998 and February 1999.^[5][9] At Khalden Camp, which generally hosted 50-100 trainees at any time, he trained in light weapons, handguns, small machine guns, Rocket-Propelled Grenade launchers (RPGs), and explosives (including TNT, C4 plastic explosives, and black plastic explosives), poisons (including cyanide), poison gas, sabotage, target selection, urban warfare, tactics (including assassinations), and security.^[5][9][13] Trainees were from Jordan, Algeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Turkey, Sweden, Germany, and France.^[5] During the five to six months he was there, he met Zacarias Moussaoui.^[9][13] He then trained how to manufacture advanced explosives and make electronic circuits for six weeks at Derunta training camp, outside Jalalabad, Afghanistan.^[9][13]

Abu Zubeida, in contrast, testified before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal that Khalden only trained fighters for "defensive jihad".^[17] He said trainees were explicitly instructed to only attack military targets, that it was an offense against Islam to kill or injure innocent civilians, and that Ressam would never have been sent to Khalden if he were thought to be someone who believed Islam justified attacking civilians.^[17]

Ressam was part of a six-person terrorist cell tasked with meeting in Canada, and then attacking a U.S. airport or consulate before the end of 1999.^[9] The cell was directed by Abu Jaffar in Pakistan and Abu Doha in Europe.^[9]

He returned to Montreal, Canada, in February 1999 under the name "Benni Noris", bringing $12,000 in cash he had obtained in Afghanistan to fund the attack, as well as chemical substances known as hexamine (used as an explosive booster in the manufacture of explosives) and glycol, and a notebook with explosives concoction instructions.^[9][13] While in Montreal, he shared an apartment with Karim Said Atmani, an alleged forger for the Algerian Groupe Islamique Arme.^[4]

In April 1999, French investigators asked Canadian authorities to locate him for questioning, but the Canadians were unable to locate him as he was living under the name Benni Noris.^[9][11] In the summer of 1999, informed by Abu Doha that the other members of his cell had been unable to make it to Canada due to immigration issues, he decided to continue without them, targeting an airport.^[9]

In August 1999 he decided that he would bomb Los Angeles International Airport, the fifth-busiest airport in the world, which he was familiar with because he had landed there in the past, and which he felt would be a politically and economically sensitive target.^[13][1] He planned to conduct a rehearsal using a luggage cart, put it in a place that was not suspicious, and observe how long it would take airport security to notice it.^[13] He then planned to execute his plan in a passenger waiting area, using one or two suitcases filled with explosives.^[13][11]

In September 1999 he purchased electronic equipment and components in order to build detonators, and made four timing devices.^[13] He also recruited Abdelmajid Dahoumane, an old friend of his, to help him.^[13] In November, with Dahoumane's assistance he bought urea and aluminum sulfate from nurseries, and mixed it together with nitric and sulphuric acid he stole from fertilizer manufacturers to create a TNT-like explosive substance.^[13]

He had met Mokhtar Haouari in early 1994, when he first arrived in Canada.^[5] Haouari was involved in fraudulent activity that included the sale of stolen passports and creation of fraudulent credit cards, and Ressam sold him some stolen identity cards.^[11] In early November he recruited Haouari to assist him in what he described to Haouari as "some very important and dangerous business in the U.S." by providing continued funding for his project, a credit card, and false ID, and Haouari in turn recruited Brooklyn, New York-based Algerian illegal immigrant Abdelghani Meskini, who he said was involved in bank fraud, to assist Ressam.^[9][13][18]

On November 17, 1999, Ressam and Dahoumane traveled from Montreal to Vancouver, British Columbia, where in a small rented motel cottage they prepared the explosives for LAX.^[9] They left behind an acid burn stain on a table, and corroded plumbing.^[19]

In December he called a facilitator in Afghanistan to inquire whether Osama bin Laden wanted to take credit for the attack, but did not get an answer.^[18] Ressam arranged for the English-speaking Meskini to wait for him in Seattle, to assist him once he crossed the border by helping him rent a car and communicate in English, drive him, and to give him money and a cell phone.^[18][1]

Ressam rented a dark green Chrysler 300M sedan, and on the evening of December 13, Ressam and Dahoumane hid the explosives and all the related components in the wheel well in the car's trunk.^[3][1][19] On December 14, they left Vancouver, traveling to Victoria, British Columbia, where Ressam sent Dahoumane back to Vancouver by bus.^[3][9][13]

Ressam then attempted to cross the border by taking the M/V Coho car ferry from Tswassen, British Columbia, to Port Angeles, Washington.^[9][8] He successfully passed through U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service checks in Victoria, and boarded the last ferry of the day for the 90-minute crossing to the U.S.^[20][1][14]

After the ferry docked in Port Angeles at 6 pm, Ressam saw to it that his car was the last one to leave the ferry.^[3][18][14] Although there had not been any intelligence reports suggesting threats, U.S. Customs inspector Diana Dean decided to have a secondary Customs search of Ressam's car performed, saying later that Ressam was acting "hinky", and asked him to get out of the car.^{[3][9][21][22]}

At first, Ressam was not cooperative.^[3] Dean requested that he fill out a Customs declaration form, which he did listing himself as a Canadian citizen named Benni Noris.^[8] He also had a passport, Quebec driver license, and credit cards all in the Noris name, as well as another Quebec driver license with the same date of birth, but in the name "Mario Roig".^[3] Royal Canadian Mounted Police later advised that the Mario Roig driver license was false, and did not exist on their records.^[3]

Another Customs inspector searching his car and unscrewing the covering over his spare tire in the trunk found, hidden in the spare tire well:

• 10 green plastic garbage bags with Template:Lb to kg of a fine white powder (which tests later identified as urea, used to manufacture explosives and fertilizer),
• 2 lozenge bottles filled with primary explosives hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD) and cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX),
• 2 plastic bags with Template:Lb to kg of a crystalline powder (later shown to be aluminum sulfate, used primarily as a desiccant, to keep things dry),
• two 22-ounce olive jars with Template:Lb to kg of golden-brown liquid (later identified as secondary explosive ethylene glycol dinitrate (EGDN), an extremely explosive and volatile nitroglycerin equivalent that is twice as powerful as TNT), and
• 4 operational timing devices designed to detonate primary explosives, consisting of small black boxes containing circuit boards connected to Casio watches and 9-volt battery connectors.^{[3][2][8][9][1][14]} When the watch alarm rings, an electrical charge passes from the battery to a small lightbulb which has had its glass covering removed, exposing the filament; the bulb heats and ignites, and detonates the other bomb ingredients in a chain reaction.^[14][19]

As one of the Customs inspectors began to escort him from the car, Ressam broke free and fled.^[3] Inspectors chased him for five to six blocks, and after he unsuccessfully tried to force his way into a car stopped at a light at an intersection, inspectors tackled him in the street took him into custody.^[3][19] Customs officials also found the phone number of Abdel Ghani.^[23]

He was arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol on charges of misrepresentation on entry and failure to be inspected, booked into Clailam County Jail, and investigated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.^[3] His fingerprints were analyzed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who determined that he was actually Algerian-born "Ahmed Ressam", rather than "Benni Antoine Noris".^[3]

An explosives expert concluded that the materials in his car would produce an explosive device that could have produced a blast 40x greater than that of a devastating car bomb.^[9][3] A suitcase in the room in which he had lived in Canada with Dahoumane tested positive for chemicals used to make bombs. It was ultimately determined that he had intended to detonate the explosives at the Los Angeles International Airport.^[8]

Indictment and trial

Ressam was indicted by a superseding indictment on January 20, 2000, for nine counts of criminal activity in connection with his attempt to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport on December 31, 1999: 1) an act of terrorism transcending a national boundary; 2) placing an explosive in proximity to a terminal; 3) false identification documents; 4) use of a fictitious name for admission to the U.S.; 5) the felony of making a false statement to a U.S. Customs official; 6) smuggling; 7) transportation of explosives; 8) possession of an unregistered firearm; and 9) carrying an explosive during the commission of a felony.^[2][8][9]

Following a 19-day trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, with approximately 120 witnesses, a jury found Ressam guilty on all counts of his indictment on April 6, 2001.^[24][9] The same day, he was convicted in absentia in France, and sentenced to five years for conspiring to commit terrorist acts there.^[11]

Cooperation and sentencing

His sentencing was delayed for four years, to give counter-terrorism analysts a chance to fully exploit him as an intelligence source. Facing up to 130 years in prison, Ressam began cooperating with investigators after his conviction pursuant to a June 23, 2001, cooperation agreement that he entered into with the U.S. government.^[9] Under the agreement, after he cooperated fully with the U.S. and other governments, the U.S. government would recommend a prison sentence taking his cooperation into consideration, though the recommendation would not under any circumstances be less than 27 years.^[1] He provided information to law enforcement officials of the U.S. and six other countries with regard to al-Qaeda's organization, recruitment, and training activities.^[9] He revealed that al-Qaeda sleeper cells existed within the U.S.^[9] This information was included in the famous President's Daily Brief delivered to President George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, entitled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US. He testified in July 2001 against his accomplice and co-conspirator Haouari, and Ressam's testimony was also used by the Guantanamo Bay Combatant Status Review Tribunal to decide that friends of his, such as fellow Algerian Ahcene Zemiri, should continue to be held as unlawful combatants.^[9]

One person whom he was not asked about until after 9/11, but whom he was able to identify when asked as having trained with him at the Khalden Camp, was Zacarias Moussaoui, an al-Qaeda member later implicated in the 9/11 plot.^[18] Moussaoui had been arrested by the FBI on August 16, 2001.^[18] But FBI agents were without success trying to convince their superiors that there was enough evidence to obtain a warrant to allow them to search Moussaoui's laptop and belongings.^[18] The 9/11 Commission Report opined that had Ressam been asked about Moussaoui, he would have broken that logjam.^[18] Had that happened, the Report opined, the U.S. might conceivably have disrupted or derailed the September 11 attacks altogether.^[18]

By November 28, 2001, Ressam began to express reluctance about discussing some matters.^[9] By early 2003, after having provided 65 hours of trial and deposition testimony and names of 150 people involved in terrorism, he stopped cooperating and began to recant his prior testimony.^[9]

The Seattle Times described Ressam's sentencing hearing as the "gripping climax" to Ressam's journey through the U.S. court system.^[25] U.S. Attorney John McKay argued Ressam should get a 35-year sentence, because he had declined to cooperate in two cases, which would now go unprosecuted.^[25] Ressam's lawyer argued that Ressam should be given a shorter sentence, to reflect the value of his original cooperation, saying: "It is a flat fact that law enforcement, the public and public safety benefited in immeasurable ways from Ressam's decision to go to trial and (later) cooperate."^[25] Ressam didn't say anything during his sentencing hearing, but did send the judge a note, in which he apologized for engaging in the bomb plot.^[25]

On July 27, 2005, United States District Court Judge John Coughenour sentenced Ressam to 22 years in prison, plus 5 years of supervision after his release.^[25] According to the Seattle Times, the judge saw Ressam's sentencing as an "occasion to unleash a broadside against secret tribunals and other war on terrorism tactics that abandon 'the ideals that set our nation apart,"^[25] adding: "The tragedy of Sept. 11 shook our sense of security and made us realize that we, too, are vulnerable to acts of terrorism, Unfortunately, some believe that this threat renders our Constitution obsolete ... If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won."

Appeals and sentencing guidelines

On January 16, 2007, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Seattle reversed his conviction on one of the charges due to the majority's reading of the applicable law, and sent the case back to the district court for re-sentencing. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, overturned the Ninth Circuit in an 8-1 decision on May 19, 2008, and restored the original convictions and sentence.^[26][8]

On February 2, 2010, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that his 22-year sentence was too lenient, and did not fit in the then-mandatory sentencing guidelines which indicated he should have received at least 65 years, and up to 130 years, in prison.^[9] Finding that the trial court judge's "views appear too entrenched to allow for the appearance of fairness on remand," the appellate court ordered that Ressam be re-sentenced by a different district court judge than the one who had handed down the original sentence.^[10][9]

On April 16, 2007, the Summary of Evidence memo prepared for Abu Zubeida's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, and the Verbatim Transcript from his Tribunal, were made public.^[16][17] Seven of the 12 unclassified allegations that Abu Zubeida faced were based on Ressam's confessions. The Globe and Mail opined that the intelligence analysts' heavy reliance on Ressam's confessions was due to a desire to have all the unclassified allegations against Abu Zubeida based on evidence that clearly didn't rely on torture.^[27]

• "Superseding Indictment in U.S. v. Ressam", January 20, 2000
• The Terrorist Within, Seattle Times

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