 Convicted "Millennium Bomber" Ahmed Ressam, shown here in an undated FBI photograph. REUTERS/FBI/Handout
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The ‘Millennium Bomber’ - Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian-born Canadian citizen - was re-sentenced Wednesday to 37 years in prison, according to local reports, after his earlier sentence of 22 years was deemed too lenient.
An active member of al-Qaida, Ressam was arrested in December 1999 with more than 59 kilograms of explosives and detonators in the trunk of his rental car at the U.S. border, south of Vancouver.
He was being monitored by authorities for some time before his arrest.
The investigation that followed showed that Ressam had been recruited by a radical Islamic cell in Montreal and he had attended an Osama Bin Laden-run training camp in Afghanistan.
The bomb-making material he was carrying across the border was intended for a New Year’s Eve attack on the Los Angeles International Airport.
When he was convicted in April 2011, his sentence took into consideration that he agreed to help root out other suspected terrorist. But he later reneged on that agreement, and recanted his earlier testimony and statements.
