JFK Terror Plot Informant Crucial To Case

Informant, A Twice-Convicted Drug Dealer, Visited Radical Muslim Group's Compound In Trinidad

(CBS/AP)  The informant who helped break up the plot to bomb the jet fuel pipeline that supplies John F. Kennedy Airport was so convincing that the suspects gave him unfettered access to their operation, federal authorities said.

He made several overseas trips to discuss the plot, even visiting a radical Muslim group's compound in Trinidad. Perhaps more important, the suspects were convinced he was guided by a higher purpose: The ringleader believed the informant "had been sent by Allah to be the one" to pull off the bombing, according to a federal complaint.

The case demonstrated the growing importance of informants in the war on terrorism, particularly as smaller radical groups become more aggressive.

On Monday, the longtime leader of the Trinidadian Muslim group denied it had any connection to the plot. "I know nothing about these men and I have nothing to do with whatever they are being charged for," Yasin Abu Bakr, the leader of Jamaat al Muslimeen, told The Associated Press.

Bakr declined to say whether he knew any of the suspects. U.S. authorities said the alleged plotters traveled to Trinidad to secure support from Jamaat al Muslimeen.

The accused mastermind, Russell Defreitas, 63, is now in custody in New York, where he will have a bail hearing on Wednesday.

But two other suspects, Kareem Ibrahim and Abdul Kadir, a former member of Guyana's Parliament, will fight extradition to the United States, their lawyer, Rajid Persad, told a Trinidadian court on Monday. The two made their initial court appearance there on one count each of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act against the government of the United States. The judge set a bail hearing for next Monday and an extradition hearing on Aug. 2.

Authorities in Trinidad are still seeking a fourth suspect, Abdel Nur.

While the intent to inflict major damage was apparent, CBS News terrorism consultant Paul Kurtz said the men were "a long way off from actually being able to carry out the plot."

Tom Corrigan, a former member of the FBI-New York Police Department Joint Terrorism Task Force, said the Kennedy Airport case and the recent plot to attack Fort Dix illustrated the need for inside information. Six men were arrested in a plot to attack soldiers at the New Jersey military base after an FBI informant infiltrated that group.

"These have been two significant cases back-to-back where informants were used," Corrigan said. "These terrorists are in our own backyard. They may have to reach out to people they don't necessarily trust, but they need — for guns, explosives, whatever."

Without informants, Corrigan said, investigators are often left with little more than educated guesswork.

"In most cases, you can't get from A to B without an informant," said the ex-NYPD detective. "Most times when an informant tells you what is going on, speculation becomes reality. What an investigator thought or presumed is happening is (often) really happening."

A senior federal official told CBS News on Sunday the U.S. government considered the JFK cell operational "in the sense that they were taking affirmative steps to move forward with the planning" — undertaking surveillance, seeking to obtain funding — "but not in the sense that they had the explosives already or had selected a date to strike."

In the Kennedy Airport case, the informant was a twice-convicted drug dealer who found himself in the midst of a terrorist plot conceived as more devastating than the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Would you like to die as a martyr?" the informant was asked, according to the indictment.

He unhesitatingly replied yes and soon was making surveillance trips around the airport — the "chicken farm," as the planners dubbed their target.

Authorities said the JFK scheme was a demonstration of homegrown terrorism. Defreitas, 63, immigrated to the U.S. more than 30 years ago, but he told the federal informant that his feelings of disgust toward his adopted homeland had lingered for years.

"Before terrorism started in this country," he said in one secretly recorded conversation. Defreitas, in custody Sunday pending a bail hearing, was arrested Friday night outside Brooklyn's Lindenwood Diner — a spot once bugged by federal officials tracking former Gambino family boss John A. "Junior" Gotti.

The four Muslim men accused in the JFK plot didn't turn to Pakistan, Iran or Afghanistan for support after targeting the airport, home to an average of 1,000 daily flights and 45 million passengers annually.

Instead, according to a federal complaint, the informant, Ibrahim and Defreitas visited a compound belonging to Jamaat al Muslimeen, known for launching a bloody 1990 coup attempt in Trinidad that involved taking the prime minister and his Cabinet hostage and left 24 people dead.

Though Jamaat al Muslimeen did have contact with the men accused in the Kennedy Airport plot, it is not accused of offering them any support. The group, whose followers are largely black converts to Sunni Islam, has faded as a political force in Trinidad as its leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, fends off criminal charges of inciting violence. The rebels in the 1990 raid on Parliament surrendered and were pardoned.

When Defreitas discussed his radical "brothers" with the informant, he made it clear they were not Arabs, but from Trinidad and Guyana.

The complaint made clear how deeply the informant had infiltrated the small band of would-be terrorists. While Defreitas, a retired JFK Airport cargo worker, made four reconnaissance missions to the airport with the informant, federal authorities captured each one on audio and video equipment.

Last year, informants played a major role in two other terror cases. In June 2006, an informant posing as an al Qaeda operative helped bring down a plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Five of the seven men arrested in that alleged terrorist group were U.S. citizens.

In May 2006, an NYPD informant's testimony led to the conviction of a man plotting to blow up the busy Herald Square subway station in midtown Manhattan.

[abbe7]

'Last year, informants played a major role in two other terror cases. In June 2006, an informant posing as an al Qaeda operative helped bring down a plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Five of the seven men arrested in that alleged terrorist group were U.S. citizens. '

And like last year it sounds again like the "informants" were the "masterminds" of the plot ...
When you don't get real successes in the "war on terror", just make them up ...

[radiob-2009]

Tool maybe they need to start reading some of these posts and tracking some of the posters to whatever universe they live in.Oh thats right they are looking for signs of intelligent life. They will have to keep on searching. ; )

[toolmangler-2009]

HiYa' radiob. It is still a shock when you find signs of life where they aren't expected. now I know how the ppl at SETI would feel if successful. :)

[radiob-2009]

Tool
Lars occasionally responds beyond the copying and pasting. He has actually stated that not all Muslims are terrorist.It is rare for him to actually do anything beyond copy and paste but it does occassionaly happen.

[toolmangler-2009]

Posted by fascistusa at 02:51 PM : Jun 04, 2007

where is there a country that any time has successfully implemented your version of anarchy???
Posted by lars008 at 02:55 PM : Jun 04, 2007


You surprise me. I was led to believe by your posts that you were a non-thinking Parrot. Keep doing this and I may yet decide that you are sentient. ;)

[me97581]

This plot is begining to smell. I am beginning to wonder if the informant fabricated the case to get his reduced sentence.

There was too much hype by too many different agencies patting themselves on the back.

The plan was unworkable in that you can not send a flame down a pipeline, wrong air to fuel mixture. The best you can do is blow up a section or two. I would expect the pipeline to be under ground and require digging to get to it.

The TSA is doing a bad job if more than one tank could be blown up.

[lars008-2009]

Posted by fascistusa at 02:51 PM : Jun 04, 2007

where is there a country that any time has successfully implemented your version of anarchy???

[wfbdem]

There is an awful lot we have done wrong but we haven't been attacked in almost 6 years. Lets at least acknowlege that much.
Posted by guyfrompa45 at 11:46 AM : Jun 04, 2007

WHAT!?!? So the 3700+ dead in Iraq, the 30000 plus wounded were caused by ...??? What? Athletes Foot?
They number of attacks as dramatically increased through out the world since the iraqi blunder. Just because you think the world ends at our borders, doesn't mean there are humans in other parts of the planet, suffering because of our boneheaded actions in the last 6 years. But they are not white and speak English, so that is not really murder, is it?

[cjjohnson--2008]

Part 1 of 6 - The Shadows In The Cave
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_P9UBD1fj0&mode=related&search=

[lars008-2009]

NOW CAN WE KILL THEM???
If they can kill us, we can kill them

Qaeda warns of attacks 'worse than 9/11'
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070530102648.wuwa6k96&show_article=1

Hizbullah Deputy Sec-Gen Sheikh Naim Qassem: We Have Jurisprudent Permission to Carry Out 'Martyrdom' Operations, Fire Missiles on Israeli Civilians From Ayatollah Khomeini
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD154907

Switching Sides: Inside The Enemy Camp

But then in 2000, well before his arrest, something happened which would make Abas question everything he believed in: a fatwa, a religious edict, was issued by Osama bin Laden.

"It should be understood that killing Americans and Jews anywhere found are the highest act of worship and the highest form of good deeds in the eyes of Allah," Simon quotes bin Laden.

Abas and his fellow commanders were ordered to read the fatwa to their men and make sure they carried it out. The others obeyed, but Abas refused. It was his moment of truth. He firmly believed that jihad was to be fought only on the battlefield in defense of Islam; he had always been taught that the killing of civilians had nothing to do with holy war and that it was forbidden.

The fatwa justified killing non-Muslim civilians everywhere.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/04/60minutes/main2761108.shtml?source=RSSattr=60Minutes_2761108
American Al Qaeda Member Threatens Attack
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/29/terror/main2865282.shtml