NEW YORK, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- An Algerian man, allegedly linked to the al Qaida terrorist network, was sentenced to 24 years in prison Wednesday in New York for aiding a plot to use a suitcase bomb at Los Angeles International Airport during millennium celebrations.
Mokhtar Haouari, 33, of Montreal was convicted last July in U.S. District Court in Manhattan for conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist act and four counts of document fraud. He was accused of helping Ahmed Ressam bring explosives into the United States via Port Angeles, Wash., from Canada in December 1999.
He was accused of supplying Ressam with fake identification and $3,000 used to buy bomb-making materials. According to officials the terrorist plot, had it been completed, would have been the worst terror attack in the United States since the Oklahoma City bombing.
Haouari did not speak at the sentencing but his attorney said his client asked for the minimum sentence of 17 years.
U.S. District Judge John Keenan disagreed and gave Haouari a lengthier sentence because he was a risk to the well-being and safety of the public.
"Mr. Haouari either knew or consciously avoided learning the details of Ressam's plan to blow up the Los Angeles airport," said Keenan. "Such activity is reprehensible."
The plot to explode a bomb at the Los Angeles airport disintegrated when a border guard at the Port Angeles border crossing near Seattle searched Ressam's car and found his truck filled with explosives. Ressam, who had been trained in a terrorist camp funded by Osama bin Laden, was convicted in Los Angeles of planning to commit an act of terrorism, explosives smuggling and lying to U.S. Customs officials. Ressam was the mastermind of the bombing plot but he agreed to testify against Haouari in hopes of reducing his own potential 130-year sentence. He has not yet been sentenced.
The jury acquitted Haouari of aiding the airport bombing plot. Prosecutors had said that Haouari didn't know the exact bombing target.
Haouari was also accused of arranging for another conspirator, Abdel Ghani Meskini, to travel from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Seattle to help Ressam once Ressam crossed the border.
Meskini, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and is awaiting sentencing, testified against Haouari. During the trial in July, Haouari became so angry at Meskini's testimony that he repeatedly hit his head against the defense table.
Although bin Laden was not mentioned in the Haouari charges, fellow Algerian Abu Doha, the alleged leader of the Algerian terrorist cell in Canada, linked the cell to bin Laden.
Doha, fighting extradition to New York from England, has been linked by investigators to bin Laden.
The indictment accuses Doha, of hatching the Los Angeles bomb plot before meeting with bin Laden in December 1998 in the Saudi's hideout in Afghanistan. The indictment said they discussed "cooperation and coordination" between bin Laden's al Qaida network and the Algerian group of terrorists.
