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Algerian Found Guilty
LOS ANGELES, April 7 (News Agencies) - Jurors found an Algerian man guilty Friday on nine counts of terrorism for plotting to bomb U.S. sites during the year 2000 millennium celebrations.
Ahmed Ressam, 33, was found guilty of bringing 59 kilograms (130 pounds) of explosives into the United States, and of conspiring to commit terrorism.
With his fists clenched at his sides, Ressam looked down as the guilty verdicts were read and translated into Arabic through the earphones he wore throughout the three-week trial.
It took the jury only 10 hours of deliberations over two days to reach its verdict in the complex case.
In a statement late Friday, FBI Director Louis Freeh praised efforts by U.S. law enforcement to apprehend Ressam, saying their detective work "represents the superb efforts of prosecutors, and of law enforcement and intelligence officers from around the world."
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft also released a statement, declaring himself "proud of the hard work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who have pursued this case.
Ressam, a Montreal resident, was arrested on December 14, 1999, after customs officials in Port Angeles, Washington State - some 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of Seattle - found a trunk-full of explosives and timing devices in his rented car.
In addition to conspiracy, the eight-woman, four-man jury also found him guilty of smuggling and transporting explosives, placing an explosive near a ferry terminal, and using a fictitious name to enter the United States.
During the trial prosecutors conceded that they were not sure of his planned target, but insisted his arrest had thwarted an attack.
"The evidence establishes that Ahmed Ressam is a trained terrorist," prosecutor Andrew Hamilton told the jury in closing arguments Thursday.
Ressam, who faces up to 130 years in prison, did not testify.
But his lawyers said their client was a gullible bit player manipulated by others after he arrived in Canada in 1994, and said the prosecution's case was circumstantial, built on "innuendo, speculation and sensationalism."
Sentencing is set for June 28th in Seattle, from where Judge John Coughenour moved the trial due to publicity and security concerns.
The defense held that the real culprit was fellow Algerian Abdelmadjid Dahoumane, who knew Ressam in Montreal and left him in Victoria, British Columbia, shortly before he boarded the ferry to Port Angeles.
Last week, Algerian authorities said they had arrested Dahoumane there. He has also been charged in the case.
During the trial a parade of FBI agents and Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers described how they had followed a trail from Ressam's Montreal apartment to a motel in Vancouver, where prosecutors say he and Dahoumane manufactured the explosives.
After his arrest, Seattle canceled its millennium celebrations.
The defense called only six witnesses, following testimony from some 110 government witnesses in the trial that began March 12th.
Ressam's fingerprints were found on the homemade bomb-timers seized from his rented car.
Two key government witnesses - an Algerian who said he traveled to Seattle to meet Ressam and a French prosecutor who investigated Ressam's role in an international group - shed little light on the case.
Abdelghani Meskini - a confessed fraud artist testifying under a plea agreement - had never actually met Ressam, and much of French magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere's evidence was ruled inadmissible.
Nor were prosecutors allowed to mention the name of exiled Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, or refer to training camps in Afghanistan, where Ressam allegedly wanted to go to participate in jihad, or Islamic holy struggle.
Bin Laden is accused by Washington of masterminding 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
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