No official complaint Iran setting up terrorist cells in Guyana – Govt

Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon said that there have been no concerns raised with the Guyana government about the setting up of terrorist cells in the country. Dr Luncheon responding to a question raised during Wednesday’s post-Cabinet media briefing and which referred to a recent media article stating that high-profile Argentinean prosecutor Alberto Nisman had indicated that Iranians have been setting up such cells in the Caribbean and Guyana.

AMIA bombing
On May 29, Nisman, the Argentine prosecutor who investigated the 1994 AMIA bombing, issued a 500-page indictment that accused Iran of establishing terror networks throughout Latin America since the 1980s. The Iranian regime infiltrated “several South American countries by building local clandestine intelligence stations designed to sponsor, foster and execute terrorist attacks, within the principles to export the Islamic revolution,” a summary of the report obtained by The Long War Journal stated.
In the 31-page summary report, Nisman said Iran’s “clandestine intelligence stations and operative agents… are used to execute terrorist attacks when the Iranian regime decides so, both directly or through its proxy, the terrorist organisation Hezbollah.”
Nisman also warned that Iran could seek to use sleeper cells. While presenting the indictment on May 29, Nisman reportedly said that members of the sleeper cells “sometimes… die having never received the order to attack”.
Iran has set up intelligence bases in a number of South American countries, according to Nisman, including, but not limited to Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. Nisman, the summary stated, plans to send his indictment “to the pertinent judicial authorities” in the various countries. A copy of the indictment is also being sent to U. S. authorities.
In addition to revealing the extent of Iran’s in filtration in South America, Nisman reportedly succeeded “to corroborate and strengthen with new evidence” that shows that the Iranian regime was responsible for the AMIA bombing in 1994, which killed 85 people.
Conviction
Nisman claimed that the 2010 conviction of two Guyanese men for conspiring to blow up the John F Kennedy International Airport was part of a larger sequence.
Abdul Kadir, a former Mayor of Linden and executive member and parliamentarian for the Peoples National Congress (PNC), and Russell M De Freitas, have been convicted for plotting to blow up fuel lines at the JFK Airport.
Prosecutors in New York have claimed that Kadir had secretly worked for years as a spy for Iran when he said during cross-examination that he had drafted regular reports to Iran’s ambassador in Venezuela on plans to infiltrate Guyana’s military and police. The plot to attack the airport did not advance beyond the conceptual stage. A U.S. Court of Appeal recently upheld a ruling for Kadir and De Freitas’ life sentence.
Allegations
Dr Luncheon said that the allegations which surfaced from the disclosures made by the Argentinean prosecutor “were the first that were being brought to our attention indirectly”.
He further stated that neither the Argentinean government nor international bodies have submitted to the government of Guyana, “in any official way that they have evidence or concerns about setting up of terrorist cells by Iran in Guyana”.
Dr Luncheon reiterated that apart from the disclosure by a high official in the Argentinean legal infrastructure, “neither our bilateral nor the international community has made any formal notification to the government of Guyana about the setting up of terrorist cells in Guyana”.