Former People’s National Congress (PNC) Member of Parliament, Mayor of Linden and convicted international terrorist, Abdul Kadir died at prison in the United States on Thursday morning.
He was in his 60’s and serving a life imprisonment sentence in the North American country.
Kadir served in the Guyana National Assembly from 2001 to 2006 as a Councillor for Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice.)
Kadir, a chemical engineer by training, was convicted for the 2007 John F Kennedy International Airport attack which was said to be an extremist terrorist plot to blow up a system of jet fuel supply tanks and pipelines that feed fuel to John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in Queens, New York. These pipelines travel throughout the undergrounds of New York City in densely populated areas.
However, the alleged plot was foiled when an undercover law enforcement official was recruited to the homegrown terrorist cell. The main suspects in the terror plot were identified as Russell Defreitas, a Guyanese born naturialised United States citizen, and native of Guyana, who was suspected to be the alleged ringleader and was employed at the airport.
Kadir was also found guilty along with Kareem Ibrahim, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and Abdel Nur, another Guyanese and uncle of late former world welterweight boxing champion Andrew “Six Heads” Lewis.
Reports indicated that the Kadirs learnt of the convicted terrorist’s demise by authorities in the US on Thursday morning. It was disclosed that the former MP was ill for some time and relatives had been informed of his condition. Reports are that he was rushed to a medical facility where succumbed to his aliments. Kadir was said to have nine children and over 15 grandchildren.
Despite Kadir always maintaining his innocence, US court documents had revealed that he was the disciple of Mohsen Rabbani, an Iranian diplomat accused of being one of the masterminds behind the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires.