Terrorist turncoat: US should be destroyed

SEATTLE, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- An Algerian bomb maker who testified as a witness for the U.S. government was an avowed terrorist bent on helping to destroy the United States when he was arrested in 1999 in a car loaded with explosives, newly unsealed court documents revealed.

The Seattle Times said Tuesday that government documents released this week indicated that Ressam had told a friend that followers of Islam must wage a jihad that would destroy the United States, and that he wanted to be a soldier in that holy war.

The unidentified friend did not testify during Ressam's trial last spring in Los Angeles, however he also indicated to U.S. Justice Department investigators that Ressam was not the low-level operative that defense attorneys had portrayed.

The so-called friend told investigators that Ressam and co-defendant Abdelmajid Dahoumane spent time together in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1999 and that, "Dahoumane was smarter than Ressam, but between the two, Ressam was in charge."

The plot to carry out an attack on U.S. soil was thwarted in 1999 with Ressam's arrest, and Ressam testified after his conviction against another co-conspirator, Mokhtar Haouari, in order to possibly receive a lighter prison term when he is sentenced in February.

Ressam was convicted on charges he tried to enter the United States from Canada with more than 100 pounds of explosives and timers stashed in the trunk of his rental car. Ressam was arrested at a ferry landing in Washington State by Customs inspectors who felt he appeared overly nervous and agitated.

He faces 100 years in prison, however he will likely get around 27 years in return for his cooperation, the Times said.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Ressam was a member of a Montreal cell -- the Algerian terrorist gang Armed Islamic Group -- and that he was entering the United States in order to take part in the bombing of a West Coast target -- believed to be the Los Angeles International Airport -- during the millennium New Year's celebrations.

Ressam was also accused of attending a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan run by Osama bin Laden in 1998, however U.S. District Judge John Coughenour ruled that that evidence would not be allowed to be heard by the jury.

Ressam did, however, testify in July during the New York trial of Haouari that he attended the Afghan camp after hearing stories about it from friends who had gone through the training program in 1997.

"My friends came back and talked to me about the training that they had received, the learning that they have gotten, and about jihad, and ... they encouraged me, so I got interested," Ressam testified.