A millennium bomb plotter's sentence 'too lenient'

Ressam co-operated with authorities before withdrawing his help in 2003 A US appeals court has ruled the 22-year term for a man guilty of plotting a millennium eve bombing of Los Angeles International airport was too short. Algerian Ahmed Ressam was convicted in 2001 of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and smuggling explosives. As he was providing details about al-Qaeda training in Afghanistan at the time, he was not sentenced. But he was sentenced in 2005 after he stopped co-operating. The appeals court said he should get a longer sentence. On Tuesday, judges in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals also removed the Seattle trial judge from the case and assigned the re-sentencing of Ressam to another judge. Ressam was arrested as he crossed the US-Canadian border near Seattle with explosives in the boot of his car in December 1999. After his arrest, Ressam reportedly helped the US authorities identify more than 100 people with alleged links to al-Qaeda. He also provided information about the network's training camps in Afghanistan. He stopped co-operating with US authorities in 2003 after being placed in solitary confinement.