Trinidadian group denies tie to JFK plot June 6, 2007
Posted by Scarecrow in 06/05/07 Cleveland.com.trackback
Trinidadian group denies tie to JFK plot
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Tony Fraser
Associated Press
Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
- The leader of a Trinidadian Muslim organization said Monday that his group had no connection to four men accused of planning to attack New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Yasin Abu Bakr, the leader of Jamaat al Muslimeen, said he knew nothing about the alleged plan to bomb a fuel pipeline feeding the airport, a plot that authorities say was hatched by a group that included a former opposition member of Guyana’s parliament.
It was Bakr’s first public comment since U.S. authorities disclosed the plot Saturday.
Two of the suspects – Abdul Kadir, the former Guyanese lawmaker, and Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad – are in custody in Trinidad and Tobago, a Caribbean island nation off the coast of Venezuela. Both were arrested there Friday.
A third suspect, Abdel Nur of Guyana, is believed to be at large in Trinidad, where authorities are searching for him. The fourth suspect, Russell Defreitas, is a former JFK air cargo employee who was arrested in New York. He is a U.S. citizen native to Guyana, a former British colony on the northern coast of South America.
U.S. court documents allege the four were plotting to bomb a fuel pipeline feeding the New York airport.
U.S. authorities say the alleged plotters sought support in Trinidad from Jamaat al Muslimeen, which staged a deadly coup attempt in the Caribbean nation in 1990. The men did not receive such support, according to court documents.
But according to the documents, Nur said he met in May with Abu Bakr at his compound in Trinidad and the Islamic leader suggested that he return later with others involved “to discuss the plan in detail.”
Nur allegedly said the Jamaat al Muslimeen leader also wanted to do further checks on Defreitas, 63, the alleged mastermind of the plot, and an unidentified confidential informant who had infiltrated the group, according to the documents.
Abu Bakr declined to say whether he knew the men and denied any involvement.
“I know nothing about these matters,” he said in a phone interview.
Abu Bakr’s group, often accused of aiming to create an Islamic state in Trinidad, describes itself simply as a religious organization. It is not known to have international reach, although a member was convicted of trying to smuggle 70 assault rifles to Trinidad from Florida in 2005.
The group stormed Parliament and took the prime minister and his Cabinet hostage in a 1990 rebellion that left 24 dead – the only Islamic revolt in the Western Hemisphere. The rebels eventually surrendered and were pardoned later.
Selwyn Ryan, a Trinidadian author who has written about Jamaat al Muslimeen, said he was skeptical of the group’s involvement in the alleged New York plot, in part because its members are mostly Sunni Muslims and the suspects are Shiites.
Authorities have alleged the group is involved in drug dealing and kidnapping to raise money, and Ryan said he believes it does not have the money to support a major terrorist attack.
