His meekness masks a murderous mind June 15, 2007
Posted by Scarecrow in 06/03/07 NY Daily News 4.trackback
His meekness masks a murderous mind
Sunday, June 3rd 2007, 4:00 AM
We could leave Iraq this morning and we would still be at war with jihadists such as the man with a gray beard who scuffled meekly into Brooklyn Federal Court yesterday charged with masterminding a plot to blow up Kennedy Airport.
On tapes made by a confidential informant, 63-year-old Russell (Mohammed) Defreitas can be heard boasting he could top the attack on the World Trade Center, killing thousands.
Now that he was in custody, he only bowed his balding head and responded in an almost submissive voice when the magistrate inquired if he understood English.
“Yes, your honor,” he said.
He is originally from Guyana and had become a U.S. citizen, but he was dressed in the Pakistani style, mustard brown pants and a matching long tunic, or shalwar kameez. He had a patch depicting the African continent sewn in a military way on his left shoulder, though there was nothing of the soldier about him.
He hardly seemed one to go toe to toe with an enemy as he bowed his head again. He replied in that same quiet voice when the magistrate asked whether he understood the charges against him.
“Yes, your honor.”
His demeanor might have been mistaken as a sign of respect, but this was a man charged with conspiring to commit the mass murder of innocents. He can be heard on the tapes speaking of his hate and murderous urges during the time he worked as a cargo handler at Kennedy Airport.
“These things used to come into my brain – well, I could blow this place up,” he was recorded saying. “I would sit and see a plane taxiing up the runway. And I would say, if I could get a rocket, then I could do a hit.”
He apparently came in contact with people from Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago who harbored that same murderous hate for America. He is alleged to have already been hatching a plot when he encountered a man who had been working as a government informant since 2004 in an effort to get a reduced sentence on a pair of drug trafficking cases.
The informant worked his way into the midst of the conspirators and reported that they intended to explode a fuel line that runs 40 miles from New Jersey through Staten Island and Brooklyn to JFK Airport. Defreitas is quoted in the criminal complaint as saying the plot would destroy “the whole of Kennedy” along with nearly everyone there and part of the surrounding neighborhoods.
Which would mean that this mild-looking man with the quiet voice would happily kill your kids. Two of his co-conspirators were apparently of the same mind.
“Once again, would-be terrorists have placed New York City in their cross hairs,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a press conference yesterday.
Kelly listed a series of plots that have been uncovered since 9/11. He should not have to tell anybody that there will be others, that if you see something you should indeed say something.
“Look at your world through the prism of 9/11,” Kelly advised.
But just half a dozen blocks downtown from where Kelly spoke, tourists in summer clothes were gawking and taking pictures of Ground Zero as if it were just a piece of history as remote and resolved as Pearl Harbor.
Some even smiled as they posed for snapshots. None of the faces showed any serious worry that the people who knocked down the towers are as strong as ever and have inspired throngs of others to undertake their own impromptu jihad.
These “homegrown” killers apparently include the seemingly meek man who was being arraigned just across the river in Brooklyn Federal Court. Most of us may fail to view the world through the prism of 9/11, but Russell Defreitas and his fellow jihadists sure do, and they look at Ground Zero as something to outdo.
When you saw Defreitas shuffle into a second-floor courtroom just after 2 p.m. yesterday, it was hard to imagine this was a man who could hurt anybody, much less murder thousands.
He seemed only more harmless with his bowed head and quiet voice. Then you read the complaint and you realized how right Kelly is when he says we cannot look at the world as if it has not changed.
Look at Russell Defreitas through the prism of 9/11 and what you see under the meekness is murder.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/06/03/2007-06-03_his_meekness_masks_a_murderous_mind-5.html
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