Two Islamist militants were found guilty on Monday by a federal jury of plotting to bomb New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Russell Defreitas, 67, a US citizen born in Guyana, and Abdul Kadir, 58, of Guyana, conspired to blow up buildings, fuel tanks and pipelines at the airport in the New York City borough of Queens.
The men, who were arrested in June 2007, face up to life in prison. They will be sentenced on Dec. 15.
Defreitas, who had worked at the airport, provided knowledge of its facilities and layout, US prosecutors said, while Kadir, an engineer, helped with technical aspects such as how to blow up the pipelines.
“The foiled plot to bomb the JFK Airport fuel tanks and the fuel line that supplied them was a serious threat,” New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in a statement. “Terrorists intent on targeting New York were stopped in their tracks.”
Defense attorneys for the men portrayed them as all bluster and no substance during the trial in federal court in Brooklyn.
Prosecutors said Defreitas and Kadir did more than just talk and “took concrete steps to make this plan a reality.” However, officials have said the plot was nowhere near being operational when the men were arrested.
During the four-week trial, jurors heard testimony and watched video clips of the airport filmed by Defreitas, and listened to recordings of the men made by an informant.
The men sought to offer their plans to Jamaat Al Muslimeen, an Islamist extremist group in Trinidad and Tobago that was behind a 1990 coup attempt on the island, prosecutors said, and also tried to send Kadir to Iran to muster support.
Kadir, arrested on board a flight to Iran via Venezuela, said he was on his way to a religious pilgrimage and was not doing anything related to the plot.
The defense lawyers expressed disappointment in the verdict.
We believe there’s more than just the evidence that Kadir was up against, the atmosphere of fear in this country ... the fear of terrorism ... especially in New York,” Kadir’s lawyer Kafahni Nkrumah said.
Defreitas’ attorney said her client would appeal the case.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS