Guyana: Two suspects in JFK plot were Shia imams

Abdul Kadir was the imam of a Shia mosque in Guyana. 56-year old Kareem Ibrahim is the imam of one of the two main Shia mosques in Trinidad.

Monday, June 04, 2007

 

The plot to blow up fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy airport in New York had been in its planning stages, and had been followed by FBI for 16 months. Despite not being close to completion, the intention of the plotters was to create maximum havoc and destruction, hoping that the fuel dumps would then destroy terminal buildings and aircraft on the ground.

US Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said the scheme was “one of the most chilling plots imaginable. The devastation that would have been caused if this had succeeded are unthinkable.”

The main instigator of the plot was a black Muslim named Russell Defreitas who had formerly worked at the airport as a cargo handler for a private company. Defreitas, aged 63, is a US citizen who came originally from Guyana.

Defreitas was arraigned at a court in Brooklyn, awaiting a bail hearing which will take place on Wednesday, June 6.

The information from his indictment contains some quotes from Defreitas. He had seen cargo being exported to Israel and assumed it would be used to kill Muslims, and had decided that the “bastards would have to pay.” He had been caught on surveillance stating: “Anytime you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States. To hit John F. Kennedy, wow… They love John F. Kennedy like he’s the man… If you hit that, this whole country will be in mourning. It’s like you can kill the man twice.”

Defreitas had resigned from his job at JFK in 1995, and had been arrested in Brooklyn on Friday night. The plot had been code-named the “chicken farm”.

Abdul Kadir was arrested around 11 a.m. on Friday at the Piarco airport in Trinidad. The day before, he had flown into Trinidad from Guyana, and was apprehended as he was trying to board a plane to Venezuela. Another man was arrested in Trinidad – Kareem Ibrahim, while Guyanese suspect Abdel Nur was still being sought. Trinidadian media suggests that Nur may be in hiding on Trinidad island.

Abdul Kadir’s wife Isha has reacted angrily to the indictment’s claims. She claimed that her husband had been going to Venezuela to pick up a travel visa to attend a religious convention in Iran.

It should be noted that Hizbollah has a presence in Hugo Chavez’s socialist state of Venezuela, which last year threatened to attack the US. The Venezuelan Hizbollah (hezbollah) is based around the Lebanese expatriate community on Margarita Island.

The indictment against Russell Defreitas mentions how he had been incensed by the conflict which had been initiated by the Shia terrorist group Hizbollah last year, which led to parts of Lebanon engaged in conflict with Israel. It is not apparent whether Defreitas was a Shia or Sunni Muslim, but it is certain that the other three suspects are Shia.

Abdul Kadir was the imam of a Shia mosque in Guyana. 56-year old Kareem Ibrahim is the imam of one of the two main Shia mosques in Trinidad. This is based at Canefarm in Tacarigua, states the Trinidad Express. He is a father of five children and sells Islamic books.

In Guyana, Abdul Kadir a qualified civil engineer, was an imam, but also was a member of the main opposition party, the People’s National Congress/Reform party. He is a father of nine children. He was a member of parliament for the Upper Demarara, Upper Berbice area between 2001 and 2006. He became a Shia Muslim in 1974. He had also lived in Venezuela for a short time, according to the Trinidad Express. He had also at one stage been the mayor of Linden, Guyana’s second largest town.

The main Islamist group in Trinidad is the Jamaat al-Muslimeen, which staged a coup on Trinidad island on July 27, 1990, in which parliament was held hostage, the TV station was taken over, and 20 people were killed.

Jamaat al-Muslimeen has been suspected of setting off a campaign of bombs which lasted from July to October 2005, but this group is Shia. However, Kareem Ibrahim is said to have visited the Jamaat al-Muslimeen’s headquarters in Mucurapo Rd, Port of Spain, “on occasion”. Yesterday, members of the FBI visited the Jamaat HQ, but according to Trinidadian Police Commissioner Trevor Paul, there was no information to link Jamaat al-Muslimeen to the JFK plot.

The president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo denied certain media claims that Abdul Kadir had been a “government official”. He pledged his support to operations to tackle terrorism, and said that he had told the US ambassador: “I said to the ambassador that we could not tolerate anyone who is implicated in any terrorist act or any conspiracy to commit terror.”

There have been links between Trinidadian members of Jamaat al-Muslimeen and terrorist activity in Guyana. The Guyanese Agriculture Minister, Satyadeow Sawh, was gunned down on the verandah of his home, along with members of his family, on April 22, 2006. The killers included David Millard, aka Buffy, aka Mustapha Abdullah Muhammad, who was a Jamaat al-Muslimeen fugitive, who had fled Trinidad to Guyana after being accused of the murder of a woman and conspiracy to murder two members of the Jamaat. He is currently in custody in Trinidad.

Muslims in Trinidad make up less than 10 percent of the entire population, while Guyana which has a larger population of people whose origins are from the Indian subcontinent, has about 15 percent of its population being Muslim. In both countries, the vast majority of Muslims are Sunnis, and Shias are few in number.

Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance since its inception. He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society.