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.

[jetlizhan]

i just don't get it - if one has 'feelings of disgust for his adopted homeland' - why the H-E-L-L didn't he and everyone else that feels this way leave the US?? i'd even buy the ticket. get your terroist @ss out of my country, the country that i love dearly.

[antoniof123]

I have this bad feeling that our technology has out grown our wisdom and it is starting to catch up to us. These guys were stupid it would have taken them forever to blow up the number of pipes needed to do any real damage.

[grumpas]

So much for Bush's theory that Iraq is full of terrorist's and by staying there we are keeping them there! It should be clear to the neo-con nuts by now terrorist's travel! Which makes their war on terror even more absurd!

[killtheliars]

I wonder if there will be a trial, where the public can find out if this was really a plot or just another bunch of idiots talking stupid like the so called fort Dix terrorists? I would not be suprised if this is merely propaganda to make it look like Bush's anti terror initiatives are working.

[usawatchman]

The HOME GROWN TERRORIST..???

these so called

'' HOME GROWN TERRORIST ''

were either
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS that the GOVERNMENT FAILED TO KEEP OUT
or
these were
LEGAL IMMIGRANTS
who the GOVERNMENT INSISTED THAT WE ALLOW
THEM TO LIVE AMONG US...
=====================

The GOVERNMENT is trying to SOIL
The GOOD NAME of
PATRIOTS and MILITIAS

==============

YOU CAN'T TAKE A VEGETABLE
GROWN IN MEXICO
THROW SOME AMERICAN DIRT ON IT
AND CALL IT '' HOME GROWN ''

ALL THESE PEOPLE ('' HOME GROWN TERRORIST '')

from what I hear they are
NOTHING BUT LEGAL and ILLEGAL
'' IMMIGRANTS ''

[drudge2]

I smell agent provocateur.

[jerr11]

It looks like the strategy is, if you can't find any terror plots, manufacture them.

This is reminiscent of the manufactured intel of WMD before the Iraq war.

Here the strategy is to find some down and out people, (they have to be black of course, Susan Smith knew this tactic) find them expressing some desire to do harm to the country, tape this as evidence and then host a humongous press conference and voila!

You have a "homegrown terror cell" and more reason to send more troops to fight the "terrorists" in Iraq!

The Bush Admin are proving they are masterful at manipulating public opinion through their use of distortion and fabricated "evidence."

Brilliant!

[jerr11]

If we get attacked it's the Governments fault if we stop a terrorist it' not the goverments doing. If you dislike this country so much get the HELL out. You all make the rest of us true Americans sick.

Posted by guyfrompa45 at 10:32 AM : Jun 04, 2007


If this was a legit plot, I would be the first to commend the government, but like the plot in Miami, this one smells of a put on.

BTW, this country does not belong just to the neocons. If you're so intolerant of dissenting views, maybe you should move out. I recommend Iran.

[drudge2]

uyfrompa45, you're just rephrasing the old and tired "Love it or leave it" *** from the 60's and 70's.
It is true that us flaming liberals do look with distrust anything that comes out of the Bush occupation. And with good reason, I might add.

[cbs_oliver]

There are people who, while minding their own business, come into possession of evidence of a plan to commit a crime and report that information to authorities. Those are good people who deserve praise and thanks.

But the agents in this and other recent cases seem to be different sorts of folk. More like beasts actually. They promote terrorist crimes and seek to encourage and ensnare and facilitate others in plans for terrorist acts - plans which maybe they would not have developed without the assistance and guidance of these paid agents.

There is something about that behavior that seems slimy. Those that do such things are a low breed of scum. They deserve no praise or thanks - just pay them - and hope that they don't decide to work for someone else in the future and turn their foul plans and liar skills against us.

[rushlimpdrug]

"If you dislike this country so much get the HELL out. You all make the rest of us true Americans sick."
Posted by guyfrompa45

Why so much anger? Perhaps you forgot to take your pills. After taking them please define "true Americans".

[mdc76082]

guyfrompa45 - first of all you don't speak for me. Im a 22 yr naval veteran and i protected people like you and everyone else, whether i liked them or not for whatever reasons. what makes me sad is the fact that folks like you, who don't understand what America is. want to know what makes America great?...it's the fact that there is DIVERSITY. understand me so far sparky? DIVERSITY is what makes this country special. it's not "one" single thing. it's "everything". it's not your way or my way or the highway, it's everybody's way. you don't even have a clue about your own culture do you? what makes me ashamed, is the fact that one-minded folks like you try to stick up and speak for people like me. please al sharpton wannabe, speak for you. speak for yourself. step up and "own" your comments. don't pin it on me. how do you think discussions are started? because 2 sides see things differently...DIVERSITY. calling people names just shows how ignorant you can really be. it doesn't do "you" justice.

[nolalou]

USAwatchman,

Unless you are a native american (Indian), then arn't all Americans either legal or illegal imigrants, or thier decendants?

As for this group just arrested, they belong in jail, no doubt, but from what we know, it dosn't sound like they would have ever had thier act together enough to carry out thier plot. The administration likes to get maximum publicity out of these arrests to somehow boost the image that we are winning the war on terrorim.

[drudge2]

"ok so we must stop the actual act while in progress. Let them get as far along as they can then jump in at the very last split second. Are you out of your minds. 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

And it would not be the end of the world if we were attacked again?
You would turn lose the mind police who mission would be to put anyone having bad thoughts in prison or worse.

We pay our military big bucks to protect us. So you need to ask, what happened on 911 to the missile battery that is supposed to shoot down ANY aircraft automatically before it can get to the Pentagon? Where was the Air Force on 911?

[cjjohnson--2008]

Remember the line from V for Vendetta:
"I want everyone to remember why they need us..."

[infidel_us]

Nothing worse than a home grown terrorist. Burn them all!

[drudge2]

Once upon a time in the land of the free, if the police or their agent tried to ensnare an otherwise innocent citizen into a crime, that citizen had the right to cry entrapment. No more.

It takes more than guns to defend democracy. It requires citizens to stand up for their rights through free speech and criticize government when it goes bad. And our government has gone very bad.

[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

[cjjohnson--2008]

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

[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?

[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???

[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.

[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. ;)

[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]

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 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. ; )

[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 ...