Interesting story in today's Seattle Times. Ahmed Ressam, aka "The Millennium Bomber", has written the judge in his case recanting part of his confession that implicated his friend Hassan Zemiri in the plot.

Ressam told authorities that Zemiri gave him $3,500 cash and a video recorder to help him "look like a tourist." Ressam testified that while he didn't provide exact details of the terrorist plot to his friend, Zemiri was aware that Ressam intended to pull off some sort of terrorist "job" in America.

Zemiri and his wife fled to Afghanistan in May 2001 after word came out that Ressam was cooperating with authorities. He was picked up a few months later near the caves of Tora Bora by U.S. forces and has spent the last five years at Guantanamo Bay.

Ressam now claims that his initial account about Zemiri was distorted by the trauma of his conviction. "When I dealt with the Prosecutor at the beginning," Ressam wrote the judge, "I was in shock and had a severe psychological disorder as I (sic) result of the court results, I was not sure about m (sic) statements."

Ressam goes on to clarify his statement on Zemiri:

Mr. Hassan Zamiry is innocent and has no relation or connection to the operation I was about to carry out. He also did not know anything about it and he did not assist me in anything. It is true that I have borrowed some money and a camera from him, but this was only a personal loan between me and him. It has nothing to do with my case "or support as the Prosecutor has alleged."

Sympathy for jihadists isn't a crime, but providing material support to them is, and this case illustrates what a murky mess it is to sort out the threat posed by radical Islamic terrorists and those abet them. Certainly, we have an obligation to try and find that line through a legal process that is just and fair, but the stakes are high and the consequences of allowing someone like Zemiri to go free based on the word of a convicted terrorist like Ressam could be potentially disastrous.