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Feds arrest 3 in alleged JFK airport terror plot


Former employee and Guyana government official among suspects named


BREAKING NEWS
WNBC-TV
Updated: 7 minutes ago


NEW YORK - Three men were arrested and one was being sought in connection to a plan to set off explosives in a fuel line that feeds John F. Kennedy International Airport and runs through residential neighborhoods, according to an indictment released Saturday.


U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf called it “one of the most chilling plots imaginable.”


“The devastation that would be caused had this plot succeeded is just unthinkable,” she said at a news conference.


Authorities arrested Russell Defreitas, a U.S. citizen native to Guyana and former JFK employee. He was in custody in Brooklyn and was expected to be arraigned Saturday afternoon.


Two other men, Abdul Kadir of Guyana and Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad, are in custody in Trinidad. A fourth man, Abdel Nur, of Guyana, was still being sought.


All four men have been charged with conspiring to attack the airport, one of the nation’s busiest, by blowing up major fuel supply tanks and the pipeline, according to the indictment. The plot involved a pipeline that takes fuel from a facility in Linden, N.J., to the airport, according to WNBC-TV NewsChannel4’s Jonathan Dienst, who first reported the story.


Kadir, a former member of Parliament in Guyana, was arrested in Trinidad for attempting to secure money for “terrorist operations,” according to a Guyanese police commander who spoke on condition of anonymity.


Kadir, a Muslim, left his position in Parliament last year. Muslims make up about 9 percent of the former Dutch and British colony’s 770,000 population, mostly from the Sunni sect.


The plot never got past the planning stages. It posed no threat to air safety or the public, the FBI said Saturday.


“This was the ultimate hand-and-glove operation between NYPD and FBI,” said U.S. Rep. Peter King, a Republican from Long Island.


The arrests mark the latest in a series of alleged homegrown terrorism plots targeting high-profile American landmarks.


A year ago, seven men were arrested in what officials called the early stages of a plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and destroy FBI offices and other buildings.


A month later, authorities broke up a plot to bomb underwater New York City train tunnels to flood lower Manhattan.


And six people were arrested a month ago in an alleged plot to unleash a bloody rampage on Fort Dix in New Jersey.


The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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