The so-called Millennium Bomber Ahmed Rassam has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for plotting to blow up LAX on New Years Eve 1999. His light sentence is supposed to reflect his cooperation with investigators looking into terror operations in Afghanistan. But the AP says that he could have gotten a shorter sentence if he hadn't stopped talking about his co-conspirators in 2003.
The judge in the case, John C Coughenour, used the sentencing hearing to take a pot shot at the Bush Administration:
"We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely or deny the defendant the right to counsel. ... Our courts have not abandoned the commitment to the ideals that set this nation apart," he said.
And Andy Hamilton, the prosecutor in the case missed the point completely when asked by the judge for a recommendation:
After noting that Ressam's sentence would be "perhaps the most important sentence this court has ever had," Hamilton told the judge that Ressam's reluctance to cooperate should weigh heavily.
"You can't be a cooperator and a terrorist," Hamilton said. "When he stopped cooperating, he went back to being what he was."
Uh, no, Andy. He was, is and always will be a terrorist. He may have been a useful terrorist for a while, but he's is still a terrorist.
Meanwhile, British officials announced that they have nabbed one of the suspects of the failed July 21 attacks.
Also of note is this BBC article on the Netherlands after the Van Gogh Murder trial, at least for this telling passage:
Peter van Heemst, the opposition Labour party spokesman on terrorism, warns the feelings stirred up by Van Gogh's murder last November remain very volatile.
While there is relief at the life sentence handed down to Bouyeri, he said, people now have a greater fear the Netherlands could, like Madrid and London, become a wider target for terror.
This dovetails quite nicely with my post on Tony Blair. This is the mindset at work in much of the west today. Don't fight, don't press charges, don't convict because the jihadis might get mad.
If you want to get mad yourself, just read this. Yasin Hassan Omar, the Keystone Bomber now in custody and an alleged accomplice, Muktar Said-Ibrahim, were living on the public dole while plotting to blow up Londoners. It seems clear that Ibrahim, described as a "swaggering... menacing, drug-smoking, racist bully," graduated from small-time crime to radical Islam in prison. The two where connected with the Finsbury Park mosque, which was for a time under the tutelage of the odious Abu Hamza al-Masri and which spawned the Leeds bombers, Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui.
The mosque has a history as a place where radical Islam is preached as well and graft, fraud and other criminal activity was conducted. The new trustees were promising a fresh start after al-Masri was banned, but it seems as if they're up to the same old tricks as the last leadership.
Hi, I have put a couple of films about Abu Hamza and the supporters of shariah up on my blog. (Filmed over two years or so) hope you like them. value any feedback.
Posted by: dave bones | September 16, 2005 at 12:48 PM