Posted on 03/12/2012 3:05:51 PM PDT by jazusamo
A 22-year sentence given an Al Qaeda-trained Algerian terrorist for plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on the eve of the millennium was unreasonably lenient, a federal appeals court ruled Monday in overturning the term.
Disputes over the appropriate punishment for Ahmed Ressam have roiled the federal courts for more than a decade, as the young Algerian captured with a trunkload of explosives when he entered the United States initially cooperated with U.S. counterterrorism agents in exposing the inner workings of the global terror network and testifying against other captured militants.
But Ressam ceased cooperating with national security agents after two years, citing a fading memory of details and psychological damage from the harsh and isolated confinement at a federal lockup in Seattle.
When a federal judge in Seattle sentenced Ressam to 22 years in 2005 -- a drastic departure from the federal sentencing guidelines range of 65 years to life for the offenses on which he was convicted -- the government appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
.45 even more so
Yep, if only they would.
Where do terrorist sit in the prison pecking order? I know child molesters are at the bottom and generally the prison population will take care of these low lifes so some justice is found but were do terrorist fit it? Near the bottom, same fate of higher up the food chain.
He’d probably be protected by the substantial Muslim population in prison but hated by other groups.
I honestly don’t know. I believe federal prisons are a bit different than most state prisons. It seems they’re not quite as tough and some approach country club status from what I’ve read.
I’d like to think terrorists are at the bottom of the pecking order, that’s where they belong.
Ressam is in the "SuperMax" federal prison in Colorado, which is most decidedly NOT a country club; but he is not at risk from other inmates, because every inmate in that facility is in permanent solitary confinment.
Glad to hear the turkey is in Supermax, it’s where he deserves to be. Maybe looking at another 50 or so years of it will push him over the edge.
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