An FBI officer has sworn in an affidavit that former PNCR parliamentarian Abdul Kadir, indicted over a conspiracy to blow up the JFK airport in 2007, had links to Iranian Moshen Rabbani who was charged in Argentina for masterminding a deadly attack on a Jewish centre.
US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officer, Robert Addonizio made this disclosure in a recent affidavit in a Brooklyn Federal Court in an attempt to convince Judge Dora Irizarry that all evidential material before the court was seized in accordance with the law. The prosecution was forced to make this move after Kadir and his co-accused, Russell Defreitas, a Guyanese with US citizenship who has since claimed to be ‘the brain’ behind the alleged conspiracy, applied to have evidence gathered during the investigation suppressed.
The agent’s affidavit shed light on the local investigation in this case which investigators here had been silent on.
According to Addonizio, in June of 2007 Guyanese lawmen obtained and executed two warrants to search Kadir’s Linden residence and it was during one of the searches that documents establishing a relationship between him and Rabbani were uncovered.
Rabbani-who was a cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy in Argentina in 1994- is being sought for allegedly masterminding the 1994 car-bombing that killed 85 people and injured hundreds more at the Jewish Mutual Association of Argentina (AMIA).
The FBI agent said that Kadir- whose only contact with the US was back in 1996 when he was intransit on his way to and from The Bahamas- is linked to the plot through telephone conversations and surveillance.
The officer argued that the search by the Guyanese lawmen and those in Trinidad, who had examined his luggage after he was arrested in that country on his way to Iran through Venezuela, were all done in accordance with the laws of the two countries.
“Trinidadian law enforcement further advised that it had initially turned over Kadir’s luggage to a third party, but later had obtained and executed a warrant, issued under Trinidadian law, to seize and search the luggage. The luggage contained, among other items, the thumb drive that is referenced in Kadir’s motion to suppress”, the agent deposed.
The FBI agent swore that on or about June 3, 2007 and June 10, 2007 Guyanese law enforcement agents conducted two searches and it was during the first that the documents were found.
He said he was present during the second of the two searches done at the home of Kadir in Linden and it was executed in the presence of his family members and among the items seized were two computer hard drives which were not searched until they were taken to the US.
“Guyanese law enforcement turned over the hard drives and other evidence to JTTF (New York Joint Terrorism Task Force) and FBI agents present in Guyana including myself, and the FBI shipped the evidence to New York. The hard drives were never searched in Guyana. In an abundance of caution, the JTFF sought and obtained a warrant to search the hard drives, issued by United States Magistrate Judge Joan M Azrack of the Eastern District of New York on July 5, 2007”.
He related that the drives were then searched with the assistance of FBI computer forensic experts for documents, video clips, photographs and other relevant files.
As it relates to Defreitas, Addonizio also argued that his home in Guyana was lawfully searched in the presence of one Karen Nero, said to be a close friend of the accused. His New York apartment was also lawfully searched and his statements given to the officers when he was arrested was also done in accordance with the law.
It was during those statements that he reportedly said he was the “brain of everything” and that the plan was “to blow up the tanks” and the intention was to hurt the US economy.
The FBI report had said during the conversation with investigators when he was arrested in New York in June of 2007, Defreitas had initially indicated that others were merely “picking his brain” for ideas when they first approached him about the plot, he later told investigators that in fact it was all his plan.
In relation to Defreitas’ bid to suppress his post-arrest statements, the FBI agent stated that upon his arrest on June 1, 2007, Defreitas was advised of his Miranda Rights by virtue of an Advice of Rights form being loudly read out to him. The agent said that Defreitas never gave any inkling that he was unable to read or understand the form. He also consented to a search of his backpack.
Kadir and Defreitas along with Kareem Ibrahim, an imam from Trinidad and another Guyanese Abdel Nur have been charged with conspiring to blow up JFK airport, tanks storing aviation fuel and underground fuel pipelines in 2007.
