Ahmed Ressam (; also Benni Noris or the Millennium Bomber; born May 9, 1967) is an Algerian al-Qaeda member who lived for a time in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He received extensive terrorist training in Afghanistan.
He was convicted in 2001 of planning to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on New Year's Eve 1999, as part of the foiled 2000 millennium attack plots. He was initially sentenced to 22 years in prison, after cooperating with the government in testifying about al-Qaeda and associated terrorist networks. In February 2010, an appellate court held his sentence to be too lenient, and ordered that it be extended. In October 2012, he was re-sentenced to 37 years' imprisonment. He is serving time at ADX Florence in Colorado, US.
Early life
The eldest of seven children, Ressam was born in 1967 and grew up in a town west of Algiers; he graduated from high school in 1988. In 1984, Ressam traveled to Paris, France, for special medical treatments; it was his first time out of Algeria. Ressam failed the exams to college and applied for jobs with police or security forces but was turned down. Over the next four years he worked with his father in a coffee shop.
He left Algeria on September 5, 1992, due to the civil war in the country, entering France on a forged Moroccan passport in the name of "Nassar Ressam". He was arrested on immigration violations in Corsica, a territorial collectivity of France, in November 1993, and France deported him to Morocco on November 8, 1993. It banned him from returning for three years. Morocco determined that he was not Moroccan and returned him to France.
Faced with a March 1994 hearing, Ressam flew to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Canada
Ressam entered Canada on February 20, 1994, using a fake, illegally altered French passport in the name of "Anjer Tahar Medjadi". When immigration officials at the Montréal-Mirabel International Airport arrested him and confronted him about the altered passport, he divulged his real name and applied for refugee status. In his effort to obtain political asylum, he told the Canadian authorities a false story about having been subjected to Algerian abuse and torture. He was released pending a hearing, and approved for up to three years of welfare benefits. His application for refugee status was denied on June 6, 1995, and his appeal was denied.
On May 4, 1998, a warrant was issued for his arrest by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. At the time the warrant was issued, Ressam was in Afghanistan, attending a terrorist training camp. He evaded deportation thereafter by using a Canadian passport he had obtained in March 1998 by submitting a baptismal certificate; he used a stolen blank certificate, filling it in with the fake name, "Benni Antoine Noris."
He supported himself by theft (stealing tourists' suitcases at hotels, pickpocketing, and shoplifting), and through welfare benefits of C$500 per month. He was arrested four times, but never jailed. By 1999, Ressam had a Canadian criminal history for theft under C$5,000, an outstanding Canada-wide immigration arrest warrant, and a British Columbia-wide arrest warrant for theft under C$5,000.
Settling in the east end of Montreal, he lived with other Algerian immigrants in an apartment building on Malicorne Avenue, later identified as the local headquarters of a cell connected to the Armed Islamic Group, which had connections to Osama bin Laden. He was recruited into al-Qaeda. According to Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials, he was under surveillance as part of an investigation into a suspected terrorist ring from 1996 until he left the country.
Terrorist training in Afghanistan
Ressam became friends with Raouf Hannachi, an al-Qaeda member who served as the muezzin at Montreal's Assuna Mosque. Hannachi returned to Montreal from Afghanistan toward the end of the summer of 1997, where he had trained for jihad at Khalden Camp. He told Ressam about the experience and jihad, encouraged him to train as well, and ultimately arranged a trip to the camp for him and his roommate Mustapha Labsi.
On March 17, 1998, interested in joining jihad in Afghanistan, Ressam traveled using his fraudulent "Benni Noris" passport from Montreal to Karachi, Pakistan. There, he contacted al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah in Peshawar, who was thought to supervise Afghan terrorist training camps funded and organized by Bin Laden. Abu Zubaydah arranged for Ressam to be transported over the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan in April.