NEW YORK, United States, Friday May 27, 2011 – Trinidadian Kareem Ibrahim now faces up to life in prison after being convicted yesterday of conspiring to attack the John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport.
Sentencing for Ibrahim, an Imam and leader of the Shiite Muslim community in Trinidad and Tobago, has been scheduled for October 21.
Ibrahim is the last of four Caribbean accused to be tried for the plot to explode fuel tanks and the fuel pipeline under the JFK airport.
Of the other three Guyanese accused, Russell Defreitas who was also a naturalized US citizen and Abdul Kadir, a former member of parliament in Guyana, were found guilty after a 2010 trial and were sentenced to life in prison. The third accused, Abdel Nur, pleaded guilty to a charge of supporting the plot, a day before Defreitas’ and Kadir’s nine-week trial began, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The evidence at Ibrahim’s four-week trial established that he provided religious instruction and operational support to the group plotting to attack JFK Airport.
The plot originated with Defreitas, who drew on his prior experience working at the airport as a cargo handler to plan the attack on its fuel tanks and fuel pipeline. Beginning in 2006, he recruited others to join the plot, including Ibrahim, Nur and Kadir.
According to the evidence, Defreitas presented Ibrahim with video surveillance and satellite imagery of the targets for terrorist attack in May 2007 because Ibrahim had connections with militant leaders in Iran.
During cross-examination at his trial, Ibrahim admitted that he advised the plotters to present their plan to revolutionary leaders in Iran and to use operatives ready to engage in suicide attacks at the airport.
On one of the recorded conversations entered into evidence, Ibrahim told Defreitas that the attackers must be ready to “fight it out, kill who you could kill and go back to Allah.”
The trial evidence also showed that the conspirators also attempted to enlist support for the plot from prominent international terrorist groups and leaders, including Adnan El Shukrijumah, an al Qaeda leader and explosives expert, and Yasin Abu Bakr, leader of the Trinidadian militant group Jamaat Al Muslimeen.
Ultimately, the plotters followed Ibrahim’s direction and sent Kadir to meet with his contacts in the Iranian revolutionary leadership, including Mohsen Rabbani, the former cultural attaché indicted for his leading role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Ibrahim, Nur and Kadir were arrested in Trinidad in June 2007, with Kadir aboard a plane headed to Venezuela, en route to Iran. All three were subsequently extradited to the United States. Defreitas was arrested in New York.
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