In a surprise twist Guyanese Abdel Nur, one of the persons implicated in a plot to blow up fuel pipes at John F Kennedy Airport, yesterday morning pleaded guilty to one count of providing support to terrorists before US District Judge Dora Irizarry in a Brooklyn, New York court.
He will however not be a state witness against his co-accused, two of whom are set to go to trial today.
Nur, formerly of Albouystown and a US deportee, is now expected to spend 15 years in prison instead of the 90 years he faced if he had been convicted of the five counts of terrorism charges he faced earlier.
But while he pleaded guilty, US media reports indicated that the man’s lawyers made it clear that he will not be used as a state witness against his co-accused.
Russell Defreitas, 66, a former Evergreen Airlines cargo worker at the airport who is a citizen of the US but was born in Guyana, and Abdul Kadir, 58, a former PNC parliamentarian are set to be tried together. The fourth defendant, Trinidadian Kareem Ibrahim, 59, was granted a separate trial at a later date due to a medical condition.
The four allegedly hatched the plot in January 2006 and circulated their plan to an international network of Muslim extremists, prosecutors have said.
“Between November of 2006 and June of 2007, I became aware that individuals whom I had known for an extended period of time were developing a plan that had as its goal the use of an explosive device or material to destroy or extensively damage fuel tanks” at the airport, Nur told Judge Irizarry, according to Bloomberg.
He will be sentenced on November 18.
According to the report Nur, who had handed himself over to police in Trinidad following an arrest warrant, yesterday said that he had travelled to the twin island republic to provide protection and introductions to assist in the bomb plot. He said he knew the goal of the plot was to hurt the United States economically.
He “became embroiled in a series of events where he could agree to provide the material support,” Nur’s lawyer, Daniel Nobel, told the media after the hearing.
“Abdel Nur, while guilty of the charge, did not of himself represent a threat to America,” the lawyer said.
Nobel, according to Bloomberg, said the charge calls for a maximum sentence of 15 years, compared with 90 years for the five counts under the original indictment. He said Nur is not cooperating with prosecutors and will not be a witness at the trial.
Nur yesterday told the court that his legal name is Compton Eversely and that Abdel Nur is his adopted Muslim name.
“I understood the goal of the planning of the destruction of fuel tanks and fuel by planes was to cause major economic loss in the United States,” Nur was quoted as saying by the New York Daily News in court.
Who is Abdul Nur?
Nur, uncle of the former World Boxing Champion Andrew ‘Sixhead’ Lewis, was raised in the Albouystown community. He was deported from the US in the late 1980s, after he was convicted of drug trafficking.
Subsequently, according to reports, he helped to feed poor and underprivileged children in the area.
Susan Calendar, a woman who benefited from Nur’s largesse had told Stabroek News back in 2007: “He is a very nice man, I cannot stop saying that.” She was one of several persons living in a two-storey house where Nur lived. “I am not saying that he can’t be part of this, but this is strange for a man like him,” another neighbour of the man who worked nowhere, but was frequently seen liming at a city cambio, had said at the time.
The woman had said that about three weeks before the wanted bulletin was issued for him, Nur departed Guyana telling them he was going to Trinidad.
Local police had disclosed that the Albouystown resident had been detained on February 13, 2007 at the request of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was fingerprinted and released. After he was named as a suspect, police went to his house and seized Islamic books and documents, including receipts from international money transfers.
Another female who lived in the lower flat of the house had said she too had benefited a lot. She said that Nur was well supported by a friend overseas and whenever he had money, he would feed some of the poor children in the community. “He used to come and share out food to the children and he never looked like that sort of person,” the woman had said.
She had also said that Nur was a devout Muslim who ensured that he attended the mosque for prayers and services.
The woman had related that the man had children who visited him from time to time.
Meanwhile, Wazeir Ally, caretaker of the Alexander Village Masjid where Nur was a member, had said the brother never looked like he had the capacity to plan such an attack. Ally had stated that Nur went for the 6 am prayers at the mosque and would not return until the next day. “He used to come and do all of his prayers in the morning, so we never used to see him in the afternoons,” Ally had said.
Ally had told this newspaper that Nur always looked unassuming and was never properly dressed. Ally had also said as far as he knew Nur did not have any close friends at the mosque, and added that whenever the man attended service he sat on a bench just outside the prayer area all by himself.
The indictment
Court documents seen by this newspaper in 2007 had said that, Defreitas, a former JFK Airport worker was the progenitor of the plan and signalled his intentions to others which eventually led to the plotters traveling to Guyana on several occasions and hatching elaborate plans, including an intention to draft the radical Trinidadian group Jamaat al-Muslimeen into the plan.
Just days prior to the alleged plotters being arrested, several of them had travelled to Trinidad where the US is alleging that they held a meeting with Muslimeen officials. The Muslimeen had been behind the abortive coup in Trinidad and Tobago in 1990.
Several other Guyanese were referred to in the complaint but not named and it is presumed that the US is still interested in pursuing them. The US is alleging that the quartet and others conspired to detonate an explosive device at JFK Airport, New York and at fuel tanks and pipelines there “with the intent to cause death and serious bodily injury and the intent to cause extensive destruction of such system and facility, where such destruction would result in and would be likely to result in major economic loss.” They are also accused of conspiring to destroy by means of fire or explosives a building and other property used in interstate and foreign commerce, to wit buildings and property at the airport. Defreitas, Kadir and others are also accused of surveying, photographing and collecting information – including satellite photos – on the terminal with the purpose of furthering their plot against the airport.
The US is also alleging that after formulating their plot, Defreitas and a paid informant who is a drug convict journeyed to Trinidad on May 20 and Nur arrived later.
Once in T&T Defreitas and the informant met Ibrahim who took them to the compound of the Trinidadian group, Jamaat-al-Muslimeen. When they got there, they met Nur who informed them that he had met with the Muslimeen official and the official had suggested that they all return in a few days to discuss the plan in detail and in the meantime he wanted do some checks on Defreitas and the informant before any meeting.
Nur, Defreitas, the informant and Ibrahim went to Ibrahim’s abode. At the Trinidadian’s home the plotters called Kadir back in Guyana and Nur told him that he had met with the Muslimeen official.
The US had also said in later court documents that the alleged terrorists had links to persons who were known in the terrorist world.
The three accused who are set to go on trial will have to face an anonymous jury following an application from the prosecution who said they wanted the jury to be anonymous because of the defendants’ terrorist activities” and their “contact with violent organisations”.
