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JFK plotters: S American link
03/06/2007 08:00 - (SA)
Washington - US officials said on Saturday the suspects nabbed in a foiled Islamic terrorist plot to blow up New York's main international airport courted support in South America and the Caribbean, including from Jamaat Al Muslimeen, which failed at a bold 1990 coup bid in Trinidad.
Four suspected Islamic extremists, including Abdul Kadir, a former member of Guyana's parliament, were charged with conspiring to blow up jet-fuel supply tanks and pipelines at John F Kennedy airport, the US Department of Justice said.
The plot had links to international terrorist cells in the Caribbean as well as South America, but was foiled well before it could be carried out, US justice officials added.
Anti-terrorist forces arrested one of the defendants, Russell Defreitas, a former employee at John F Kennedy airport in New York.
In Port-of-Spain, commissioner of police Trevor Paul said that Guyanese citizen Abdul Kadir and Trinidadian Kareem Ibrahim were arrested in Trinidad on Friday and on Saturday respectively.
The fourth defendant, Abdel Nur, also a Guyanese citizen, is believed to be hiding in Trinidad and Tobago, Paul said, though US officials said they believed he was at large in Guyana.
Trinidad and Tobago form a two-island nation just off South America's northeastern shoulder. Guyana, a former British colony, lies on that shoulder, just east of Venezuela.
Roslynn Mauskopf, the US federal prosecutor in the eastern district of New York, called it "one of the most chilling plots imaginable."
"The defendants used their connections to present their terrorist plot to radical groups in South America and the Caribbean, including senior leadership of Jamaat Al Muslimeen (JAM), which was responsible for a deadly coup attempt in Trinidad in 1990," it added.
Back in 1990, the JAM - a Muslim group made up mainly of Afro-Trinidadians - for six days held hostage at gunpoint members of the government including then-Prime Minister ANR Robinson. Meanwhile the usually bustling capital Port-of-Spain slid into a spiral of violence, looting and chaos. About 40 people died during the coup attempt.
Kadir and Nur were longtime associates of JAM leaders, the department added, while Kareem was "preparing to send an emissary overseas to present the plan to other extremists."
"Defendants also obtained satellite photographs of JFK airport and its facilities from the internet and traveled frequently between the United States, Guyana, and Trinidad to discuss their plans and solicit the financial and technical assistance of others," the Justice Department added.
It did not immediately provide further details.
However in Port-of-Spain, Paul denied - contrary to the US claims - having any information linking the suspects to the Jamaat Al Muslimeen group.
An unnamed US law enforcement official told The New York Times that the suspects "didn't have the money and they didn't have the bombs, but if we let it go it could have gotten there; they could have gotten the JAM fully involved, and we wouldn't know where it could have gone."
Trinidad, which has considerable oil wealth, is home to most of the population of Trinidad and Tobago.
Among T&T's population of 1.3 million the largest groups are Afro-Trinidadian and of East Indian origin; at 520 000, persons of Indian ethnic origin make up 40 percent of the total.
In Guyana ethnic East Indians also make up more than 40 percent of the population of the former Dutch colony of 750 000.
In both countries, relations among ethnic groups often have been tense. People of East Indian heritage in the West Indies are descended from indentured servants brought in during the colonial era, while Afro-Trinidadians and -Guyanese are descendents of African slaves.
- AFP
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