The Silence of Ressam

Seattle’s millennium bomber endured years of interrogations, spilled Al Qaeda’s secrets, then refused to say more. Ten years after he was captured, the nation’s courts are still struggling over what to do with Ahmed Ressam.

By Eric Scigliano

The case detoured to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Attorney General Michael Mukasey personally argued the government’s side. Then it went before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, meeting in Seattle. In August 2008 a two-judge majority found that Coughenour hadn’t sufficiently explained his choice in light of the sentencing guidelines and sent the case back for resentencing.

At the resentencing hearing in December 2008, the prosecution ratcheted up its recommendation—to 45 years—and its rhetoric. Deputy U.S. Attorney Mark Bartlett compared Ressam’s failed scheme to the 9/11 attacks and, driving the point home, introduced the father of a Twin Towers victim who’d come out to urge against leniency. If Ressam had “chosen to cooperate immediately…maybe 9/11 wouldn’t have happened,” Bartlett suggested, not mentioning that the authorities didn’t try to get him to cooperate then because they thought him too insignificant.

Bartlett lamented that because Ressam wouldn’t testify against Mohamed and Abu Doha, the United States had to withdraw its charges and let Canada and Britain release them. (Canada actually deported Mohamed to Algeria, and Britain kept Abu Doha under electronic house arrest and a communications blackout.)

Ressam insisted on representing himself at the resentencing. He asked the court to dismiss all the testimony he’d given before—“the statement that was put in my mouth”—and dismiss every case built on it. (This didn’t affect the cases he’d already testified in; the convictions stood.) After that, he didn’t care: “So sentence me to life in prison or as you wish. I have no objection to your sentencing.”

Fair enough, countered Bartlett: Since Ressam was once again “dedicated to radical jihadism” and trying to “affirmatively aid known terrorists,” the prosecutors would make their own switch. Instead of 45 years, they urged he be sentenced to life in prison.

Judge Coughenour didn’t agree. He echoed what he’d said in 2005: that harsh confinement and grueling questioning had contributed to Ressam’s mental deterioration and withdrawal, that his earlier contributions were still “invaluable,” and that to downplay them “would diminish the likelihood of future cooperation by other apprehended terrorists.” He reimposed the same sentence: 22 years. And he again looked to the big picture: “As our nation prepares for a new chapter of American history with a new president, it is my hope that those with the power to affect the way terrorism trials are conducted in this country will look favorably upon this case.”


Not a chance. The U.S. Attorney’s Office appealed the sentence. This February, the same two appeals judges who’d ordered the first resentencing delivered an even stronger rebuke to Coughenour. They found he’d abused his discretion, given too much credence to the defense and Dr. Grassian and not enough to the prosecution, let Ressam off too easy, and failed to protect the public. This time they not only overturned the sentence but ordered the case reassigned to another trial judge.

And so a new round of appeals begins, this time launched by the defense. “Ahmed may be a fatalist, but I’m not giving up,” says Hillier, and then he sighs. “I wish I hadn’t gotten myself into all this. It’s just crushing me. But I really love Ahmed. I’ve worked very hard to save him. I think he’s worth saving.”

Determined jihadist, a gentle soul who took a very wrong turn, or both, Ahmed Ressam is out of the way now, even more isolated than he was in SeaTac solitary. In 2005, after being sentenced, he was transferred to the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado—also home to Richard Reid, Jose Padilla, Zacarias Moussaoui, and the Unabomber. He gets out of his underground cell to exercise for an hour each day, one day in an indoor cage, the next day in an outdoor cage.

Still, says Hillier, “he seems more at peace. He no longer has the emotional turmoil that was eating him up. He’s put this behind him.”

If so, he’s the only one who has.