Kadir gets life in prison for terror plot

Former PNCR Member of Parliament Abdul Kadir was sentenced to life in prison for his role in a failed plot to blow up fuel lines and tanks at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday. He has planned to appeal the decision. 

Kadir was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry in Brooklyn, New York. Kadir and Russell Defreitas, a former Evergreen Airlines cargo worker at the airport, were convicted on August 2 by a federal jury there. Defreitas, a U.S. citizen and native of Guyana, is scheduled to be sentenced next month.

Kadir, 59, Defreitas, 67, and their accomplices circulated their plan to an international network of Muslim extremists, according to evidence at the trial. The attacks were designed to destroy “the whole of Kennedy,” Defreitas said in a taped conversation heard by the jury. The airport is the largest in the New York City area, and is located in the borough of Queens.

“There can be no doubt whatsoever that the offences for which Kadir was convicted are about as serious as they come, short of actual murder,” Irizarry said before sentencing him. The plot, hatched by Defreitas in 2006, was foiled in the planning stages with the aid of an informant, Steven Francis, according to testimony at the trial. The plotters conducted surveillance of the airport, including videotaping its buildings, and sought expert advice, financing and explosives, prosecutors said.

Back in July, Kadir had told the court that he was not involved in the terrorist scheme. He said that he had feigned interest in the plan because he had hoped its architects would have helped him raise money to build a mosque. Kadir was very expansive in detailing his personal history, describing his schooling and his years as a Guyanese technocrat. He testified that he had seven children, two stepchildren, and 24 grandchildren. The former Linden mayor described himself as a devout Shia Muslim who had converted from Catholicism and who yearned to build a mosque near his home in Linden, where he served as mayor. 

During the trial, prosecutors had also entered into evidence photographs taken in Guyana showing Kadir and some of his children brandishing dangerous-looking firearms. The authorities said Kadir had planned to show photographs of himself — shirtless, and with pistols shoved into his waistband— to extremists in Iran to bolster his image and gain support for the plan to blow up the fuel tanks. 

But Kadir testified that most of the weapons in the photographs were toys. And he said he never intended to show the pictures in Iran, where he said viewers would most likely be offended by images of a shirtless man without traditional Muslim garb.  While prosecutors portrayed him as an eager participant in the plot, Kadir testified that he had feigned enthusiasm.

 Engineer/politician 

Kadir was an engineer who advised on the technical aspects of the plot, prosecutors said. 

Kadir was arrested in 2007 en route to Iran. Prosecutors said he was going there to gain financial and operational support for the plot. Kadir testified at the trial that he was travelling to Iran to ask for money for a mosque and to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s former supreme leader. 

“Every unbiased and unprejudiced person knows that I am innocent,” Kadir said at his sentencing. He testified that he sent reports on Guyana’s economy, politics and military to the Iranian ambassador in Venezuela, beginning in the 1980s. He said the reports were based on publicly available information, and sending them wasn’t illegal. He denied prosecutors’ suggestion that he was an Iranian spy.  

Denied plot 

“I may have acted foolishly and said some things that definitely were wrong,” Kadir told the judge at his sentencing. “But I contend that at no time did I ever join in consciously, and have any desire to be part of, a plot that would have destroyed people and properties of this country.” The plotters also sought support from Abu Bakr, leader of the group Jamaat Al Muslimeen, which had staged a 1990 coup attempt in Trinidad that resulted in “numerous deaths,” according to court papers.

The plot members’ ultimate goal was to reach Adnan G El Shukrijumah, who is wanted in connection with possible terrorist threats against the U.S., and who is a member of al-Qaeda, the Muslim terrorist group led by Osama bin Laden, prosecutors said. Kadir’s lawyers, in a letter to Irizzary on December 1, sought a sentence of less than the 40 years recommended by the Department of Probation. They argued that Kadir had no criminal record, that his involvement in the plot was limited, and that he had been offered a 15-year sentence to plead guilty to providing material assistance to terrorism.  

Key role 

Prosecutors said Kadir should get life in prison, arguing that he played a “key role” in the conspiracy and lied “repeatedly” under oath. The mastermind, Defreitas, compared the plot to terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center in September 2001 when two planes were crashed into the towers. “Even the twin towers can’t touch it,” he had said in one conversation that Francis recorded and jurors heard. “This can destroy the economy of America for some time.” Kadir and Defreitas will appeal, their lawyers have said. 

Abdel Nur, 60, a citizen of Guyana, pleaded guilty in June to providing support to terrorists. He was scheduled to be sentenced on December 17, but the occasion has been changed to a status conference to address his medical condition. Kareem Ibrahim, a citizen of Trinidad, was granted a separate trial due to a medical condition. A trial date hasn’t been set yet. (Bloomberg)