Face-to-face with JFK terror suspect

Brooklyn diner’s waitress speaks out

 Eyewitness News

(New York – WABC, June 4, 2007) – The waitress who served a JFK Airport terror suspect his last meal before getting arrested speaks out to Eyewitness News.

And we’re learning much more about what happened in the hours just before authorities broke up what they say was a plot to blow up JFK.

Eyewitness News reporter Jim Dolan is in Brooklyn with the story.

Sharon Fitzmourice is a waitress at Brooklyn’s Lindenwood Diner. Her husband is a retired New York City Police detective. She thought she knew a thing or two about people, but she had no idea she came so close to a man who federal prosecutors say wanted to, plotted to kill more people than died on September 11th.

On Monday, new surveillance video reportedly shows one of the suspects taken just minutes before his arrest. In the video, the accused mastermind of the terror plot is seen leaving a diner shortly before his arrest. Also on the tape, obtained by Eyewitness News, you can see the alleged ring leader and a government informant eating at a back booth.

Police say 63-year-old Russell Defreitas and the informant would often lay the groundwork for the attack in their meetings. The two men then leave, first the informant and then the suspect, blending in with the diner crowd.

After leaving, the two men get into a truck. Defreitas was arrested just a few blocks away and arraigned over the weekend.

“He was the terrorist and I waited on him,” Sharon said.

Sharon did wait on alleged terror plot mastermind Russell Defreitas that day, and never had a clue that he and a federal informant were allegedly plotting murder on a massive scale.

“When I found out who he was and I got home that night from work … I was a little shaken by that because it was that close to somebody that evil. It kinda shook me up a bit,” Sharon said.

Two other suspects, Kareem Ibrahim and Abdul Kadir, are in custody in Trinidad and will fight extradition to the United States. They faced a judge Monday. A fourth suspect is still on the loose.

But officials say it was Defreitas, a former airport worker, who led the charge to blow up the fuel pipeline at JFK. He allegedly plotted with the informant at Brooklyn’s Lindenwood Diner, where their conversations were recorded.

Officials say the informant was the key to cracking the case. He made several overseas trips with the men to discuss the plot. He also visited a radical Muslim compound in Trinidad and tagged along on airport surveillance trips. In fact, officials say the informant was so convincing that Defreitas said he was “sent by Allah to be the one to carry out the attack.”

Government officials say this is just another example of how important these informants are and the significance of having someone physically on the inside to bust up these plots. It happened with the Fort Dix plot and again here.

So just how credible was their plan?

Eyewitness News reporter NJ Burkett continues our team coverage with a look at whether the suspects could have actually pulled it off. In a word, no. Most experts tend to agree that it probably could not have been done. But does that really matter?

Federal prosecutors say that the men were determined to blow up Kennedy Airport, attacking the pipelines that carry jet fuel from refineries in Linden, New Jersey to the airport in Queens. It was intended to be a series of coordinated explosions meant to destroy the airport in a massive chain reaction.

Terrorism experts like Joe King say the plot was highly implausible. Pipelines have valves and fail safe shutdown mechanisms.

“Could you blow up the entire Kennedy Airport with that?” King asked. “No. Not gonna happen.”

But King, who ran counter-terrorism in New York for the U.S. Customs Service, says intentions are far more important than capabilities.

“The intent is there,” King said. “The criminal intent to try and kill hundreds or thousands of people is there.”

King says that faced with an unworkable plot, the men may have attempted more realistic. The mayor praised police for targeting both terrorists and would-be terrorists.

“They go after every single potential threat,” Bloomberg said. “And if it turns out to be [without substance], that’s the best scenario we could possibly hope for.”

“Even if they found that it couldn’t work for the gas pipes, this guy was so focused for years that they would’ve found something else,” Senator Charles Schumer said. “They would’ve found maybe explosives or guns or something. So getting these people was very, very important.”

Major Security Flaw Around Pipeline

The Eyewitness News Investigators uncovered a major flaw in security around the pipeline targeted in the JFK terror plot — startling security breaches just days after a plot was uncovered.

Most of the 40 mile jet fuel pipeline is underground snaking through three New York City boroughs. But in Brooklyn, our Jim Hoffer found a broken security fence close to a shut off valve.

Nearby, we found part of the actual system exposed with a cap that could easily be removed. The pipeline company says the system is guarded by foot and air patrols.

Muslim Extremist Connections?

The suspected JFK terror plot is lifting the veil on alleged terrorists in two countries that most Americans haven’t paid much attention to: Trinidad and Guyana.

Are the suspects here connected to Muslim extremists there? The Investigators Sarah Wallace has a look.

All of the alleged plotters had ties either to Guyana or Trinidad and were allegedly trying to use Muslim extremist connections to try and get support and materials for an attack at JFK.

But a top federal official acknowledges their investigation uncovered nothing more than talk, lots of meetings but nothing concrete. From an intelligence standpoint, the feds had gotten what they were going to get — so they moved in.

One suspect, 63-year-old Russell Defreitas, is probably wishing he’d ordered the big plate special at the Lindenwood Diner Friday night. He won’t see a good diner meal for a long time, if federal officials have their way.

The Guyanese born former JFK cargo worker is now accused with three others — two Guyanese citizens and one from Trinidad — in a terror conspiracy plot at JFK Airport. The feds say in the past year, Defreitas, a U.S. citizen, and his co-conspirators often traveled to both Guyana and Trinidad trying to tap into a network of Muslim extremists.

Security consultant Jerry Kane has done frequent business in Trinidad and is well familiar with the most notorious extremist group, Jamaat al Muslimeen, or JAM. The groups’ leader Yasin Abu Bakr, led a violent coup attempt in 1990. The feds say the suspects made repeated attempts to get abu Bakr’s support.

“He’s well known in Trinidad and Guyana as maybe the radical Muslim in both those countries … he’s the guy,” Kane said.

But there’s no evidence the suspect’s got any commitment from any extremist group. A federal source says when it became clear they had gathered as much intelligence as they were likely to get, and that one of the suspects, Abdul Kadir,was preparing to travel to Iran, authorities made their move.

“Were we about to have our fuel lines blown up? Probably not. But are these bad guys who would like to blow up these pipe lines? Yes they were. They should be arrested,” Kane said.

Authorities are looking for a fourth suspect believed to be in Trinidad. Two others are in custody and are awaiting extradition proceedings to the U.S. Defreitas is in the federal lock up in Brooklyn.

(Copyright 2007 WABC-TV)