[Nupbeaupeteew]

4 Accused of Plot to Blow Up Facilities at Kennedy Airport



Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly at an F.B.I. office in Manhattan. Several officials said there had
been no immediate threat to the airport.


By CARA BUCKLEY and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: June 3, 2007

Four men, including a onetime airport cargo handler and a former member of the Parliament of Guyana, were charged yesterday with plotting to blow up fuel tanks, terminal buildings and the web of fuel lines running beneath Kennedy International Airport.


One of the suspects was taken into custody in Brooklyn and two others were detained in Trinidad, the authorities said, while the fourth man was still at large.

One defendant, the former cargo handler, Russell Defreitas, was arraigned yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn. He is a 63-year-old Guyanese native and naturalized American citizen who lives in Brooklyn.

Mark J. Mershon, the assistant director in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in New York, said all four men had “fundamentalist Islamic beliefs of a violent nature,” although they appeared to be acting on their own and had no known connection to Al Qaeda.

Law enforcement officials said that Kennedy, which handles roughly 45 million passengers a year and 1,000 flights a day, was never in imminent danger because the plot was only in a preliminary phase and the conspirators had yet to lay out detailed plans or obtain financing or explosives.

The airport is fed jet fuel, gasoline and heating oil through a capillary system of pipes that run from New Jersey through Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens. Oil industry experts said safety shut-off valves would almost assuredly have prevented an exploding airport fuel tank from igniting all or even part of the network.

But officials said the four men determined to carry out their attack, having conducted “precise and extensive” surveillance of the airport using photographs, video, the recollections of Mr. Defreitas and satellite images downloaded from Google Earth.

They said the men had also traveled repeatedly to Guyana and Trinidad in recent months, seeking the blessing and financial backing of an extremist Muslim group based in Trinidad and Tobago called Jamaat al-Muslimeen, which was behind a bloody coup attempt in Trinidad in 1990.



The alleged plotters had ties to
Guyana and sought the backing
of a Trinidadian terrorist group,
officials said.


“The enforcement action we are announcing today was taken to prevent a terrorist plot from maturing into a terrorist act,” Mr. Mershon said during a news conference yesterday at F.B.I. headquarters in Manhattan. The motive behind the planned attack, he said, “was a pattern of hatred toward the United States and the West in general.”

Mr. Defreitas was arrested Friday night at a restaurant in Brooklyn, the Lindenwood Diner. A federal magistrate judge ordered him detained at his arraignment yesterday, pending a bail hearing on Wednesday.

Mr. Defreitas walked slowly into the courtroom, his face drawn, wearing a greenish-brown knee-length tunic and loose pants. His court-appointed lawyer, Drew Carter, told Magistrate Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto:
“There’s a lot more to the story. I don’t want to get into this now, because it’s not a trial.”

One law enforcement official played down Mr. Defreitas’s ability to carry out an attack, calling him “a sad sack” and “not a Grade A terrorist.” Comparing the case with the plot in which a group of men were arrested last month on charges of planning to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey, the official said the New Jersey plotters “were a bit further along.”

But the official said that Mr. Defreitas’s efforts to enlist Jamaat al-Muslimeen’s aid could have had devastating consequences.

“They didn’t have the money and they didn’t have the bombs,” the official said of the suspects, “but if we let it go it could have gotten there; they could have gotten the J.A.M. fully involved, and we wouldn’t know where it could have gone.”

The official declined to be identified because he was not authorized to comment on the case.

Abdul Kadir, 55, a former mayor of a town in Guyana and a onetime member of Parliament in that South American country, was arrested in Trinidad on Friday. He helped Mr. Defreitas complete the plan and secure financing, according to the criminal complaint, which was unsealed yesterday.

Mr. Kadir was detained after boarding a flight on Aeropostal, a Venezuelan airline, which was to go to Caracas, an official briefed on the arrest said yesterday. The flight between Port of Spain and Caracas, which usually takes less than an hour, had taken off but the crew was told to return to Trinidad, the official said.

The third suspect, Kareem Ibrahim, 61, was arrested in Trinidad. The extradition of both Mr. Kadir and Mr. Ibrahim was being sought.

The fourth suspect, Abdel Nur, 57, remained a fugitive, the officials said, and was believed to be in Trinidad.

If convicted, all four suspects could face life in prison.

The charges were announced by Mr. Mershon; the city’s police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly; Roslynn R. Mauskopf, the United States attorney in Brooklyn; and other officials.

According to the criminal complaint, which was sworn out by Robert Addonizio, an investigator with the Brooklyn district attorney’s office assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the authorities became aware of the plot in January 2006; officials would not say how.

An informant with a criminal history including drug trafficking and racketeering agreed to work with investigators on the case, in exchange for payments and a reduced sentence.

Last July, the informant, whose name was not released, befriended Mr. Defreitas, officials said. Mr. Defreitas said he recognized the informant from attending services at a Brooklyn mosque, took him into his confidence and slowly disclosed his plan to attack Kennedy, according to the complaint.

Though Mr. Defreitas had lived in Brooklyn and Queens, he told the informant that his resentment of the United States hardened into hatred during his years as a cargo worker at the airport.

“He saw military parts being shipped to Israel, including missiles, that would be used to kill Muslims,” the complaint read. Mr. Defreitas, who was secretly recorded by the informant, complained bitterly that he “wanted to do something” and that “Muslims always incur the wrath of the world while Jews get a pass.”

Mr. Defreitas envisioned “the destruction of the whole of Kennedy” and theorized that because of underground pipes, “part of Queens would explode.” He boasted that in addition to a huge of loss of life — “even the twin towers can’t touch it,” he said — the attack would devastate the United States economy and strike a deep symbolic blow against a national icon, President John F. Kennedy, officials said.

“Any time you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States,” he said in one of dozens of conversations secretly recorded during the 18-month investigation, according to the complaint.

“They love John F. Kennedy,” he said. “If you hit that, this whole country will be in mourning. It’s like you kill the man twice.”

Mr. Defreitas worked as a contractor at the airport from 1990 to 1993, said officials with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport. Commissioner Kelly said he stopped working at the airport in 1995.
The reason for the discrepancy was not clear.

In any event, the informant accompanied Mr. Defreitas on a series of trips between New York and Guyana, where the pair met with a number of co-conspirators, the authorities said. The group created code words like the “Chicken Farm” and “Chicken Hatchery” to refer to the plot.

As described in 33-page complaint, Mr. Defreitas seemed enraptured by the plot. He believed the informant had been “sent by Allah to be the one” and fantasized about the paradise that would await them after their martyrdom.

Mr. Defreitas was intent on meeting leaders of Jamaat al-Muslimeen to finance the plot, and another co-conspirator, Mr. Nur, agreed to help arrange the meeting. The group gained notoriety for the failed coup attempt, in which 24 people died, but today, officials said, it is known more as a street gang involved in drug trafficking. Authorities in the United States and Trinidad have closely watched the group’s activities since the Sept. 11 attacks, but in the United States it is not designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

A representative of Jamaat al-Muslimeen, who declined to be identified, said in a telephone interview from Port of Spain that the group would have no immediate comment on the allegations.

In January of this year, Mr. Defreitas was back in New York, and over the period of a week he and the informant visited Kennedy Airport four times — all the while being recorded, videotaped and followed by law enforcement authorities.

Mr. Defreitas pointed out fuel tanks on airport property, nearby gas stations, possible sites of lax security as well as possible escape routes, the authorities said.

Using video he shot at Kennedy, which he hoped would secure funds for the plot, Mr. Defreitas returned to Guyana in February and began meeting again with co-conspirators, including Mr. Kadir, who, along with being a former elected official, is an imam.

Mr. Defreitas and the informant traveled to Trinidad on May 20 and stayed for two days with Mr. Ibrahim; then, all three men met with Mr. Nur in a compound owned by a leader from Jamaat al-Muslimeen, the authorities said.
That group was interested in the plot but first wanted to learn more about Mr. Defreitas and the informant. Mr. Ibrahim was worried about presenting the plan to the group, and advised Mr. Defreitas to present it instead to contacts overseas.

Mr. Defreitas agreed, and he and the source returned to New York on May 26.

Less than a week later, believing they had enough evidence for a successful prosecution, the authorities picked him up.

One friend of Mr. Defreitas’s expressed shock at word that he had been arrested in a plot to attack Kennedy Airport. The friend, Trevor Watts, 65, described Mr. Defreitas as not dangerous.

“He’s not that type of person,” Mr. Watts said after learning of Mr. Defreitas’s arrest. “He’s not smart enough.”

Mr. Watts said he first met Mr. Defreitas years ago, when both men lived on Albany Avenue in Brooklyn. Mr. Defreitas was working at Kennedy Airport at the time. His brother helped him land the job there, filling out his job application for him because Mr. Defreitas had trouble reading, Mr. Watts said.

Mr. Defreitas had been divorced and lost touch with his two children, Mr. Watts said. After leaving his Albany Avenue apartment, he moved from place to place and was homeless for a time, his friend said.

He also lived alone for several years in an apartment on North Conduit Avenue, near the airport. The daughter of his landlord described him yesterday as a “polite man” who always paid his rent on time. When he finally ended up leaving, he told the landlord that the weather was rough on his health and the cold was tough on his arthritis, the daughter said.

Mr. Defreitas was always thinking of ways to make money, Mr. Watts said. He had been in a car accident, and he spoke to Mr. Watts about his hopes of getting rich by winning a lawsuit. He sold books on a street corner in Queens and would ask his friends to give him their broken air-conditioners and refrigerators. He shipped the items to his girlfriend’s sister in Guyana so she could repair and sell them, Mr. Watts said.

After coming home from a series of trips to Guyana, Mr. Defreitas started dressing in traditional Muslim clothes and referred to himself as Mohammed, said Mr. Watts, an auto mechanic.

Mr. Watts said Mr. Defreitas appeared to have adopted his fundamentalist beliefs only in recent years. He had previously embraced American culture, Mr. Watts said, and liked a particularly American brand of music, jazz, especially the saxophone.

In recent years, he lived in an apartment in a four-story building on Rockaway Avenue in Brooklyn, on a run-down block full of graffiti. Agents from the F.B.I.’s Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested Mr. Defreitas at the diner, on Linden Boulevard, about 10 p.m. on Friday.

“When he was picked up last night, he was playing the guessing game about who the informant was,” a law enforcement official said yesterday. “He was cooperative at first, but he was not providing any information that we did not know.”

When confronted by the authorities with information about the plot, however, Mr. Defreitas denied any involvement, the official said.

Though the New York area has been the subject of several terrorist plots, Commissioner Kelly said this one was different because it was largely developed in the Caribbean.

“This is an area in which we have growing concern and I think requires a lot more focus,” Mr. Kelly said, echoing a concern law enforcement officials have reiterated in recent years.

According to The Trinidad Guardian newspaper, Guyana’s president, Bharath Jagdeo, said yesterday that he was unaware of the details of the arrests but that on Friday, the United States ambassador, Roy Austin, requested a meeting with him. He said he learned from Mr. Austin that Guyanese nationals were involved “in some plot at the J.F.K.,” but he said there was no Guyanese connection to the overall plot. He noted that Mr. Kadir was not a government official but was, until about two years ago, a member of parliament from the opposition party.

Asked whether he believed that West Indians traveling to the United States would be subject to greater scrutiny, Mr. Jagdeo said, “I hope there is no paranoia.”

“It’s not as if it’s a trend,” he was quoted as saying. “We are hoping there is no adverse reaction.”




Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[MadMark]

Mr. Defreitas envisioned “the destruction of the whole of Kennedy” and theorized that because of underground pipes, “part of Queens would explode.” He boasted that in addition to a huge of loss of life — “even the twin towers can’t touch it,” he said — the attack would devastate the United States economy and strike a deep symbolic blow against a national icon, President John F. Kennedy, officials said.

“Any time you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States,” he said in one of dozens of conversations secretly recorded during the 18-month investigation, according to the complaint.

“They love John F. Kennedy,” he said. “If you hit that, this whole country will be in mourning. It’s like you kill the man twice.” Recall news from one year ago:

WASHINGTON (AP) - New York will receive $124.5 million in anti-terrorism grants for cities at high risk of attacks, a deep cut of some 40 percent...
...
A worksheet made by the federal government to explain the decision, obtained by The Associated Press, said the city had just four major financial assets at risk, and no national monuments or icons...
...
Federal officials defended the decisions.

"At the end of the day our job is to make sure that we apply resources in an appropriate manner across the full breadth of this nation so that we get the maximum benefit out of those dollars," Homeland Security Undersecretary George Foresman told reporters in Washington.
...

http://www.nysun.com/article/33646?page_no=1

[lalpphilalk]

The New York Times
June 4, 2007

Papers Portray Plot as More Talk Than Action


Storage tanks at Kennedy Airport. Officials say four suspects hoped to wreak “unthinkable”
devastation by exploding the airport’s fuel network.

By MICHAEL POWELL and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

The plot as painted by law enforcement officials was cataclysmic: A home-grown Islamic terrorist had in mind detonating fuel storage tanks and pipelines and setting fire to Kennedy International Airport, not to mention a substantial swath of Queens.

“Had the plot been carried out, it could have resulted in unfathomable damage, deaths and destruction,” Roslynn R. Mauskopf, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, said in a news release that announced charges against four men. She added at a news conference, “The devastation that would be caused had this plot succeeded are just unthinkable.”

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly then stepped to the lectern with a vision only a bit less grim.

“Once again, would-be terrorists have put New York City in their crosshairs,” he said. Mr. Kelly said a disaster had been averted.
But the criminal complaint filed by the federal authorities against the four defendants in the case — one of them, Abdel Nur, remained at large yesterday — suggests a less than mature terror plan, a proposed effort longer on evil intent than on operational capability.

(Ms. Mauskopf noted in her news release that the “public was never at risk” and told reporters that law enforcement “had stopped this plot long before it ever had a chance to be carried out.”)

At its heart was a 63-year-old retired airport cargo worker, Russell M. Defreitas, who the complaint says talked of his dreams of inflicting massive harm, but who appeared to possess little money, uncertain training and no known background in planning a terror attack.

“Capability low, intent very high,” a law enforcement official said of the suspects.

Some law enforcement officials and engineers also dismissed the notion that the planned attack could have resulted in a catastrophic chain reaction; system safeguards, they said, would have stopped explosions from spreading.

The complaint, filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, also suggests that at least two of the suspects had some ambivalence. One of the men was game for bombing the airport but leery about killing masses of people, the complaint says. Another dropped out of the plot for a time to tend to his business.

The suspects had ties with a dangerous Islamic group that once engineered a deadly coup attempt in Trinidad and Tobago, which was approached about underwriting a plot, but in the end, the men decided to stop courting that group and resolved to shop elsewhere overseas for financing.

No one would second-guess the authorities for pursuing and arresting suspected plotters. An enduring lesson that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have taught prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the danger of inaction.

But as with many post-9/11 terror plots, the line between terrible aspiration and reality can get lost in a murky haze.

In case after case, from what authorities said was a dirty bomber to the Lackawanna Six, federal prosecutors hail arrests of terrorists and disruptions of what they describe as sinister plots. But as these legal cases unfold, the true nature of the threats can come into question.

Ms. Mauskopf and Mr. Kelly declined yesterday to discuss their characterizations of the airport case. Mark J. Mershon, assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s New York office, also spoke at the news conference, and he said yesterday that his message was very clear:

“I believe I spoke the simple truth at the press conference: the ambitions were horrific, the capacities were very limited, but they kept trying. Their signature was their persistence.”

Neal R. Sonnett, a defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor who was chief of the criminal division in the United States attorney’s office in Miami, congratulated the F.B.I. for fine police work in what was clearly “a prosecutable case.”

But he said: “There unfortunately has been a tendency to shout too loudly about such cases.”

“It has a bit of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight to it,” Mr. Sonnett said. “It would have served the federal government well to say that.”

The seeming gap between the rhetoric at Saturday’s news conference and the reality of the threat could reflect a change in approach among law enforcement officials.

By their nature, prosecutors prefer to wait until they have accumulated an overwhelming store of evidence. The characteristic tough prosecutorial language of the post-indictment news release reflects their certainty about their cases.

Now, prosecutors and F.B.I. agents find themselves pouncing sooner than in the past, the better to stamp out potential terror plots before there is a grave risk to life or property.

“The whole goal now is to get these plots at a very nascent stage — and that means the evidence will always be more ambiguous,” said Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who pursued terrorism cases in New York and helped investigate the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We now need to pay a lot more attention to people’s aspirations to commit terror and worry less about how imminent the threat is.”

A reading of the criminal complaint makes clear why prosecutors and F.B.I. agents grew so alarmed as they learned of the ambitions ascribed to the suspects.

One of the co-conspirators, identified in the complaint only as individual E, described himself as a patron of jihad and paid for some of Mr. Defreitas’s travel expenses.

And Mr. Defreitas, in taped statements attributed to him, was unequivocal about his desire to kill many thousands of his fellow Americans.

But the same papers give reason for doubt about the competence of the suspects. The details tend to suggest a distance between Mr. Defreitas’s dream and any nightmarish reality.

There is, too, the question of the role played by the unidentified undercover informant who befriended Mr. Defreitas.

The informant is a convicted drug trafficker, and his sentence is pending as part of his cooperation agreement with the federal government, said the authorities.

It was to this informant, according to the authorities, that Mr. Defreitas first confided his “vision that would make the World Trade Center attack seem small.” The complaint notes that the defendant “did not discuss the details.”

Mr. Defreitas and the informant drove out to the fuel tanks at night, conducting surveillance, and made video recordings of Kennedy Airport and its buildings.

They also “located satellite photographs of J.F.K.,” the complaint states, “and sought expert advice, financing and explosives.”

But the satellite photographs amount to images easily downloaded from Google Earth.

A law enforcement official characterized the surveillance videos as “amateurish”; but he added that the material offered enough detail, taken together with the Google images, to at least help with planning.

The complaint also states that the men discussed “escape routes” through local roads and highways.

Many of the plot’s larger details are left to the imagination.
According to the complaint, one suspect discussed the need to disable an airport control tower, the better to provide cover to destroy the fuel tanks.

Another problem is that none of the suspects appears to have planned or carried out any previous attacks.

Nor do the men appear to possess relevant military training.

One defendant, Abdul Kadir, is said to have warned the others that the Islamists in Trinidad “had their own rules of engagement and wanted to minimize the killing of innocents such as women and children.” He suggested an early-morning assault to take out buildings rather than people, the complaint says.

Other planners seem to come and go, and in the end, one of the men, Kareem Ibrahim, advises that he will present their terror plan to “contacts overseas who may be interested in purchasing or funding it.”

But law enforcement officials say some caution is advised here. Terror plots, particularly those planned ad hoc by freelancers, tend to be messy affairs. There is no assurance that all the plotters share the qualms of a few. Nor is there any assurance an angry plotter might discard the collective long-term planning and strike alone quickly and violently.

“Even if he shoots up a terminal, it’s a disaster,” said a city law enforcement official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic. “At a certain point, once you’re sure there isn’t a larger Al Qaeda involvement, you just move.”

An official in the Justice Department defended the way the case was presented to the public, saying federal authorities offered a reasoned picture of the case and the threat. “We repeatedly let people know there was not a threat to the airport and this was a plot that was nowhere near completion,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to address the issue. “The documents speak for themselves.”

Mary Jo White, who was the United States attorney in Manhattan for nearly a decade and oversaw the successful prosecution of the first World Trade Center bombers in 1993 and the men who attacked the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, said the challenges to a prosecutor are significant.

“Obviously, when you speak about these plots, you don’t want to scare the public unnecessarily,” she said. “But if we’ve learned anything from 9/11 it is we should never again fail to take seriously the lower-level terrorist or wannabe terrorist or the most seemingly apocryphal plot, because they may well occur.”

But Mr. Sonnett, who also is a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, noted that there is a broader risk in overstating the sophistication of a terror plot. At a time when many Americans live in justified fear of an attack, the risk is that drumbeating creates a climate of fear and drives public policy.

“To the extent that you over-hype a case, you create fear and paranoia,” he said. “It’s very difficult for prosecutors and investigative agencies to remain calm.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/04/nyregion/04plot.html

[loan4younow]

My thoughts in red

...there is a broader risk in overstating the sophistication of a terror plot. At a time when many Americans live in justified [really?] fear of an attack, the risk is that drumbeating creates a climate of fear and drives public policy.

Sunday, June 3, 2007 11:53 a.m. EDT

Giuliani: JFK Plot Proves I Should Be President


Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Saturday used news of a plot to blow up a John F. Kennedy International Airport jet fuel line as another example of why he should be elected president.

Giuliani told a crowd of 700 gathered at a Broward County Republican fundraiser that Democrats ignore the Islamic terrorist threat and that he is the Republican candidate best capable of handling it.

"I've had the most experience dealing with [the aftermath of] terrorism," Giuliani said, citing his experience as a federal prosecutor and later as mayor of New York City, where he served during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"There are some very good people on the Republican side that understand terrorism, I do not find too many on the Democratic side that do, but I think of the people that do, I understand it the best and can keep the country focused on being on offense," Giuliani said.

Early in his nearly 30-minute speech, Giuliani mentioned the arrests of men who authorities say were part of a Muslim terrorist cell. He later held a press conference to make a statement about the alleged plot.

"Today's arrests remind us that we're at war," Giuliani said. "It should remind us that the terrorists are at war with us, both overseas and here in the United States."

He said it should not be a political issue, but rather a reality the country has to live with.

"We need things like the Patriot Act, we need things like electronic surveillance. It has to be legal, but we need it. We need things like interrogation techniques to get information from people. Legal again, but it has to be aggressive," Giuliani said. "These are the things that keep us safe in a world in which there are more than a few people organized around [?] Islamic terrorists who want to harm us and kill us." [like FBI operatives ginning up half baked terror plots with half witted terrorists?]
There is, too, the question of the role played by the unidentified undercover informant who befriended Mr. Defreitas.

The informant is a convicted drug trafficker, and his sentence is pending as part of his cooperation agreement with the federal government, said the authorities.

It was to this informant, according to the authorities, that Mr. Defreitas first confided his “vision that would make the World Trade Center attack seem small.” The complaint notes that the defendant “did not discuss the details.”

Mr. Defreitas and the informant drove out to the fuel tanks at night, conducting surveillance, and made video recordings of Kennedy Airport and its buildings.

They also “located satellite photographs of J.F.K.,” the complaint states, “and sought expert advice, financing and explosives.” Earlier, he told the crowd to watch Sunday night's Democratic presidential candidate debate and see if the words "Islamic terrorist" are mentioned. He said they weren't during the first debate.

"I want to see tomorrow night if you hear them utter those words, because if you do, I want you to put a little check mark next to my name and give me credit for it because I've been criticizing them for weeks for not mentioning the words 'Islamic terrorist,"' he said.

***********

Giuliani is a proto-fascist and he must be stopped.

[PekHyvac]

Giuliani is a proto-fascist and he must be stopped.

Heartily agreed.

[payporanymn]

Another load of B.S. released in a way to maximize political impact.

[reawnvam]

He's starting to scare me. Really scare me.

[Golotop]

He's like that guy from Heroes....


I wonder if he can fly.........

[STYWOMBORGOSY]

The remaining posts about Giuliani encompassed much more about him than the scope of this topic. Beginning with Kliq6's quote of Jasonik, they were moved to the "Race for the White House" topic:

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showth...t=12290&page=9

[mpegdvdclip]

Thanks ^^^ I almost posted a link to that thread, but was too lazy

[Guaranano]

Now with the two topics cross-referencing each other, looks like Rudy is getting double coverage. Or rather, double slaughter.