A Montreal man convicted last month for his role in a millennium terrorism plot has confessed that he intended to detonate a large bomb at Los Angeles International Airport and is cooperating in an ongoing federal investigation, law enforcement sources said Tuesday.
Ahmed Ressam, 33, who refused to tell authorities anything for 17 months after his arrest, admitted his terrorism plans in recent weeks, according to sources familiar with the case.
Sources did not say whether Ressam has discussed the details of an attack on LAX.
He was convicted April 6 on nine counts of conspiring to commit an act of international terrorism and related charges.
Ressam, an Algerian national, faces up to 140 years in prison when sentenced in federal court. He is expected to receive a lighter sentence in exchange for his continuing cooperation in the ongoing investigation of a Montreal-based group of Islamic extremists and that group's alleged ties to suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, sources said.
Four Bin Laden operatives were convicted in New York on Tuesday of conspiring to blow up two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, killing 224.
Sentencing for Ressam is scheduled for June 28, but delays are now expected given Ressam's cooperation.
Authorities, including the FBI and federal prosecutors, would not confirm Ressam's admissions or his agreement to cooperate with them.
Ressam's chief public defender, Thomas Hillier, said, "I'm not commenting on anything."
Ressam's sudden turnabout represents a dramatic breakthrough not only in the ongoing terrorism investigation, but in the upcoming prosecution in New York of one of his alleged co-conspirators, Mokhtar Haouari.
Haouari, also of Montreal, stands trial June 26 on charges of plotting to help Ressam and two other Algerian nationals "punish America" by blowing up unspecified U.S. targets on or about New Year's Day 2000. Ressam is expected to be the government's key witness against Haouari.
On Tuesday, Haouari lawyer Daniel Ollen said authorities have not told him that Ressam will be a witness.
Ollen added: "It's one thing being a terrorist. It's another to be a terrorist and a rat."
Roland Thau, a New York public defender representing another alleged Ressam co-conspirator, said he was "surprised Ressam hadn't started down that road [to cooperating with authorities] a long time ago."
Thau represents Abdelghani Meskini, who testified against Ressam as part of his own plea agreement.
