Al Qaeda suspect faces U.S. trial

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A British magistrate ruled Friday that an Algerian connected to a plan to bomb Los Angeles International Airport can be extradited from Britain to the United States.

But the defendant, Amar Maklolif, better known as Abu Doha, is expected to appeal the decision, setting up what could be a protracted legal stand against his transfer to the United States to face trial, where he could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

At the hearing, Belmarsh Magistrate Timothy Workman ruled there was no reason to block Doha's extradition. Doha has 15 days to appeal to Britain's High Court, and should he lose there, he can appeal to the British House of Lords. Before an extradition can take place, British Home Secretary David Blunkett must sign off on U.S. prosecutors' request.

Doha, dressed in a business suit, appeared jaunty and smiling as the charges were read by Workman and translated for Doha into Arabic.

Convicted millennium bomb plotter Ahmed Ressam has told U.S. prosecutors that Doha ran a terrorist cell in Montreal, arranged for explosives and for sending potential terrorists to al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

Ressam, who cooperated with prosecutors, claimed that Doha was the mastermind of the bomb plot.

Doha met with bin Laden

Doha, 37, is under indictment in a New York federal court for conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against Americans, to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, to provide material support to terrorists, and other charges.

Ressam, 34, has been convicted of conspiracy to detonate a suitcase bomb at Los Angeles International Airport. The plot unraveled when U.S. Customs agents stopped him on December 14, 1999, as he came across the U.S.-Canadian border into Washington state with a trunk filled with explosives and timing devices.

In an affidavit supporting the U.S. extradition request, Ressam named Doha as gatekeeper to the Khalden camp in Afghanistan, where Ressam underwent months of firearms and explosives training in 1998. He said Doha provided money, means of communication, safehouses, and fake travel and identification documents to recruits.

Ressam said Doha -- after meeting with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden -- participated in discussions with trainees about U.S. and Israeli targets to be hit by the end of 1999 in the United States and the Middle East, and then gave Ressam seed money to carry out a "jihad operation."

Ressam said he had sent Doha a fake French passport to enable a member of his terrorist cell to come to Canada, but that conspirator went to Germany instead. Other cell members never made it out of England, Ressam testified, saying that he alone conceived of targeting LAX, because he had landed there once on a return flight from Pakistan.

Upon his arrest, Ressam had a business card with Doha's phone number in London, and calling cards that showed he had called the number as recently as 11 days earlier.

Doha's London apartment contained papers with notations for the same explosive chemical mixtures found in Ressam's car, plus fake passports and passports with recent stamps for Pakistan, the gateway to Afghanistan, according to the indictment.

Ressam has said Doha would have assisted him in fleeing the United States, via London, for Algeria after completing his millennium bombing.

Doha was arrested in February 2001 at London's Heathrow Airport as he prepared to board a plane for Saudi Arabia. He has been held by British officials on domestic terrorism charges.

U.S., Canadian and Italian investigators have said they believe Doha ran a terror cell in Montreal and was connected with al Qaeda operatives in Milan.

--CNN correspondent Diana Muriel in London and CNN Producer Phil Hirschkorn in New York contributed to this story.