World

An Algerian-born man who once lived in Montreal has been sentenced to 37 years in prison for plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport around the turn of the new millennium.

Ahmed Ressam was arrested in December 1999 in Port Angeles, Wash., after he drove off a ferry from British Colombia with a trunk full of explosives.

U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour had twice ordered him to serve 22-year terms, but both times the sentences were reversed on appeal.

Ressam's lawyers on Wednesday conceded that he should face at least three decades to satisfy the appeals courts.

The Justice Department had sought life in prison because of the mass murder he intended to inflict and because he recanted his co-operation with federal investigators.

Ressam lived in Montreal for several years after coming to Canada as a refugee claimant, a claim that was later denied.