Terror suspects denied bail June 18, 2007
Posted by Scarecrow in 06/12/07 Newsday 10.trackback
Terror suspects denied bail
Terror suspects denied bail
By Andre Bagoo Tuesday, June 12 2007
FEDERAL BUREAU of Investigations (FBI) photographs were yesterday produced in the Port- of-Spain Eighth Magistrates’ Court as Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls denied three men bail in relation to charges of conspiracy to destroy the JFK International Airport in New York.
Mc Nicolls however refused to look at the photographs which were produced by Israel Khan SC who is representing the State’s Central Authority Unit in extradition proceedings against the three men. The photographs were taken off an USB drive seized from Abdul Kadir, one of the suspects, when he was arrested. Wanted in the United States (US) on five charges including conspiracy to bomb a public transport system are Guyanese Abdel Nur, 57, Kadir, 55, and Trinidadian Kareem Ibrahim, 56.
It is alleged the men conducted surveillance, made video recordings of the JFK airport and its buildings and facilities on the Internet, and sought expert advice, financing and explosives in relation to the alleged plot. A fourth suspect, Russell De Freitas, 63, was held on June 1 by American authorities in Brooklyn. He is yet to secure bail with a planned bail hearing last week being cancelled because he is broke.
Yesterday Khan, in objecting to bail for all three men, warned that the issue should not be determined by superficial factors.
“You cannot look at an individual and say that he is not a terrorist. Terrorists come in all forms and fashions…gentlemen, rogues, vagabonds…” Khan noted how the physical appearance of one of the suspects, Nur, had changed substantially since his first appearance last week.
He produced a photograph of Nur when he first arrived in Trinidad and said it showed the suspect “dressed-up like my Islamic forefathers.” This, he said, was in contrast to Nur’s appearance in a grey T-shirt in court before Senior Magistrate Lianne Lee Kim last week. Khan noted that on that occasion, Nur told the magistrate that he was “a poor guy” and was not able to afford a lawyer.
Nur’s lawyer, Richard Clarke-Wills, who was appointed to represent him after he applied to Legal Aid, took objection to Khan producing the photograph. But Mc Nicolls did not find it necessary to look at this photograph.
Yesterday, attorney Rajiv Persad, representing Kadir and Ibrahim, argued that both men had shown by their track-records that they “invested much of their (lives in) service to their communities.” He pointed out that Kadir was – among other things — a Justice of the Peace since 1995, a member of parliament from 2001 to 2006, the Mayor of Linden (the second largest town in Guyana) from 1994 to 1996, a civil engineer and member of the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers. Kadir, he said, was also the father of nine, and grandfather of 18.
Kadir smiled and waved at his supporters in the public gallery of the Port-of-Spain Eighth Court yesterday.
But Khan said, “good character means nothing…in matters of this nature” and warned that anybody could be “a sleeping agent” for terrorist cells. He said the offences which attracted penalties of 20 years to life imprisonment without parole, were too serious to allow the accused out on bail.
Mc Nicolls ruled that he would not grant bail given the seriousness of the offences. The men were remanded in custody and reminded of their right to apply for bail from a judge in chambers. They return to court on June 22.
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,58638.html
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