Judge orders extradition in alleged airport plot

updated 7:37 p.m. ET Aug. 6, 2007

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad - A judge Monday ordered three men extradited to the U.S. to face charges in an alleged plot to attack New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, and a confidential U.S. document said they planned to seek help from Iran.

Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls rejected without comment a defense argument that the men could not be extradited on conspiracy charges under Trinidadian law.

Taped conversations between the alleged conspirators show they planned to seek Tehran’s help in a strike intended to dwarf the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to a 28-page document signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Marshall C. Miller and delivered to lawyers here.

“We can try to send someone to Iran to get the movement, the revolutionary movement, and they can discuss that plan there,” Trinidadian suspect Kareem Ibrahim, an Islamic cleric, was quoted as saying in the confidential report, which was shown to The Associated Press.

Russell Defreitas, a U.S. citizen who worked as a cargo handler at the airport until 1995 and is now in custody in New York, told Ibrahim that when contact was made with the Iranians, they should be told the attack should be staged late at night in the winter, because “these are the times they don’t respond to nothing. Traffic slow down. Security slow down. Everything slows down,” according to the document.

Iran overture halted
In another conversation, Ibrahim said he had recruited one of his associates, described in the document only as “individual F,” who would “travel to Iran and present the plot to militants there.”

“He say he will go,” Ibrahim is quoted as saying. “All he has to do is renew his passport.”

But then U.S. authorities stepped in, apparently before the overture to Iran could be made.

One of the three who faces extradition from Trinidad to the U.S. is Abdul Kadir, who was arrested in June as he was boarding a flight from Trinidad to Venezuela and planned to travel to Iran. His wife said he intended to attend an Islamic religious conference in Iran.

Kadir was an opposition legislator in Parliament in Guyana, a South American country along the Caribbean coast, until last year. Kadir, who is a cleric, studied Islam in Iran in the 1990s.

Richard Clarke-Wills, a lawyer for Abdel Nur — the third defendant in the extradition hearing — said he would appeal the ruling to the country’s High Court and a decision should take at least six weeks.

Attorney Rajiv Persad, who represents Ibrahim and Kadir, said he had to speak to the men before deciding whether to pursue an appeal.

MORE FROM SECURITY

Security Section Front

Were Chinese agents at Gitmo? House panel to investigate CIA hit teams Chinese-born engineer guilty of spying Russian ballistic missile test fails Somali man's family says he's not a terrorist Security Section Front   Add Security headlines to your news reader: