KING

Ahmed Ressam

SEATTLE -- Federal prosecutors Wednesday in Seattle will ask a judge to more than double the 22-year sentence he gave to an al-Qaida-trained terrorist convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport at the turn of the millennium.

Prosecutors say in recent years, Ahmed Ressam has taken back statements he made implicating other terrorists and he doesn't deserve the leniency U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour showed him in 2005.

The original sentence has been vacated by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

U.S. border guards in Port Angeles arrested Ressam, an Algerian national, as he drove a rented car packed with explosives off a ferry from British Columbia in December 1999.

The ensuing scare prompted Seattle officials to cancel some millennium celebrations at Seattle's Space Needle, though investigators determined Ressam's target was a terminal at LAX, busy with holiday travel.