|
NEW YORK - A CONVICTED drug dealer agreed to pose as a potential terrorist in a shadowy group accused of plotting to blow up the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He secretly fed information to US investigators in exchange for a lighter sentence.
His surveillance trips to the airport with the suspects, travels abroad to meet supporters and assurances he wanted to die as a martyr in the planned attack on an underground fuel pipeline gave counter-terrorism agents crucial insights.
Four Muslim men have been accused of plotting to use explosives to destroy a jet fuel pipeline that runs to the airport through heavily populated neighbourhoods in a bid to kill thousands of people and trigger an economic catastrophe.
One of them believed the bombing would cause greater destruction than the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.
Court papers and investigators revealed that the informant began working for the government in 2004 after his second drug trafficking conviction in New York.
He was sent to meet Russell Defreitas, a former cargo worker at JFK who was the mastermind of the plot.
Defreitas quickly accepted the informant as legitimate, saying he was sure they knew each other through a Brooklyn mosque. According to a government report, he believed the informant 'had been sent by Allah to be the one' to pull off the bombing.
Thereafter, a 16-month-long surveillance operation began.
It centred on Defreitas, who conducted extensive reconnaissance of the airport and made repeated trips to the Caribbean to conspire with the other men.
But analysts said the alleged plot to bomb the airport's fuel infrastructure would have been technically difficult, with some expressing doubts about the cell's capability to carry out the planned attack.
Officials said the alleged conspiracy never reached an 'operational' stage, and that the airport was never in immediate danger.
What seemed more disturbing to observers was the apparent determination of Defreitas to hook up with Islamic radicals abroad and his passion to cause as much damage and loss of life as possible.
According to the government report, the informant and defendants Kareem Ibrahim and Defreitas visited a compound belonging to Jamaat Al Muslimeen, a radical Islamic group known for launching a bloody 1990 coup attempt in Trinidad that involved taking the prime minister and his Cabinet hostage and leaving 24 people dead.
Though Jamaat Al Muslimeen did have contact with the men accused in the airport plot, it was not accused of offering them any support.
The report also made clear how deeply the informant had infiltrated the small band of would-be terrorists.
As Defreitas made four reconnaissance missions to the airport with the informant, the federal authorities recorded each one on audio and video.
Defreitas, 63, who immigrated to the United States more than 30 years ago from Guyana, was in custody on Sunday pending a bail hearing.
Ibrahim and another suspect, Abdul Kadir, were in custody in Trinidad awaiting extradition hearings.
Officials identified Kadir as a former mayor of a Guyanese town and a Member of Parliament.
The authorities in Trinidad were still seeking a fourth suspect, Abdel Nur.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, WASHINGTON POST
|
