Trial of Suspected Algerian Terrorist Will Be Shifted From Seattle to L.A.

An accused terrorist suspected of smuggling explosives across the Canadian border will be tried in Los Angeles, not in the city that canceled its millennial celebration after his arrest, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national who was arrested with enough explosives in the trunk of his car to blow up a building, cannot receive a fair trial in Seattle because of massive publicity about the case, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour ruled.

Ressam, 32, was arrested debarking a Canadian ferry boat in the small town of Port Angeles, Wash., after a U.S. Customs officer noted his hands were shaking. In the wheel well of his car authorities found electronic timers and explosives, in addition to a second ferry ticket stub that indicated he may have had an accomplice.

Alarmed that Ressam had a reservation at a motel near Seattle’s Space Needle, site of the city’s planned gala New Year’s Eve celebration, city officials canceled the party, a fact which defense lawyers argued gave potential jurors in the city a personal stake in the case.

“This is the kind of crime that people feel victimized by as an entire community, and here we had direct consequences flowing, in the way of cancellation of the millennium event, and toughened security all the way around,” said Chief Federal Defender Michael Hillier, who sought the change of venue on Ressam’s behalf.

Defense lawyers also cited widespread media coverage of Ressam’s purported ties to Middle Eastern terrorist groups, including Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group and Osama bin Laden, a Saudi extremist identified by the U.S. government as the mastermind behind bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Hillier called such connections “completely inaccurate,” and federal prosecutors have never formally connected him with any group. A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment accusing him of committing an act of terrorism transcending a national boundary, in addition to charges of transporting explosives and carrying false identification documents.

Also named in the indictment is Ressam’s former roommate, Abdelmajid Dahoumane, who is thought to have possibly accompanied Ressam into the U.S. in December. Authorities in Canada and the U.S. have so far been unable to locate Dahoumane, however. Ressam has pleaded not guilty to the indictment.

Federal prosecutors had sought to keep the case in Seattle, arguing that “speculation” about possible connections to terrorist groups has largely evaporated in local media reports and that overall coverage of the case has dwindled.

“We argued that finding presumed prejudice [by potential jurors against a defendant] is really the extreme case, and it was my view that we should try to seat a jury here and see if we could find a fair and impartial jury,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Jerry Diskin said.

Coughenour said it was a close call but found that news coverage of the case so far “is likely to have a prejudicial effect” against the defendant.

“In particular, the content of the publicity repeatedly conveys the sense that anyone in Seattle might have been a victim of a narrowly averted terrorist attack,” the judge said.

In deciding on Los Angeles as an alternative venue, Coughenour cited superior security at that courthouse. “This building was designed in the 1920s, and without getting into the specifics, it doesn’t have the same security,” the judge said.