LOS ANGELES - A Seattle judge Wednesday re-imposed a 22-year jail term on an Al-Qaeda member dubbed the "Millennium Bomber," convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles airport on New Year's Eve 1999.

The judge handed down the same sentence passed on Algerian, Ahmed Ressam, 41, in July 2005, despite prosecution calls for a 45-year term.

"Yes, 22 years," said US Department of Justice spokeswoman Emily Langlie in Seattle, in the northwestern state of Washington, asked about Wednesday's sentence. The first sentence was cancelled on appeal in 2007.

Ressam was arrested as he crossed the US-Canadian border with a carload of explosives which prosecutors said he planned to detonate at Los Angeles' busy airport in an eve-of-Millennium terrorist spectacular.

He was convicted of nine counts connected to the plot in April 2001, but sentencing was delayed until 2005 as US authorities sought his cooperation to help uncover information about other global terror suspects.

Ressam was eventually jailed for 22 years, but his sentence was vacated after he successfully challenged his conviction on one of the charges -- relating to false declarations made to customs officials -- on technical grounds.

In January 2007 the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld his appeal and ordered the entire sentence be sent back to lower court for resentencing.

Ressam, who lived in Canada, was caught driving into the United States in a rented car loaded with 59 kilograms (130 pounds) of explosives and bomb-making materials, including four timers that could have been used for suitcase bombs.

Prosecutors said he had planned to detonate explosions at the Los Angeles International Airport -- one of the world's busiest transport hubs -- on the eve of the new millennium with the intention of causing maximum carnage.

The plot was averted by an alert customs agent who became suspicious of Ressam's nervous demeanor when stopped for a routine border check.

Following his 2001 trial, Ressam struck a deal to help authorities with other terror probes in return for a reduced sentence.

During his first four years behind bars, he tipped off US authorities about possible Al-Qaeda cells and provided information about terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, where he had earlier learned his craft under the guidance of top terror suspect Abu Zubaydah.

But in 2003 Ressam stopped cooperating, claiming authorities had mistreated and betrayed him.