Guyanese man pleads guilty to JFK terror plot
Abdul Nur
GEORGETOWN/ NEW YORK -60-year-old Abdul Nur, a Guyanese man, has plead guilty to charges stemming from a plot to blow up fuel tanks and pipelines at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, officials said.
He pled guilty to providing material support to the plot before his trial was set to open in a New York federal court.
Nur now faces a 15-year prison sentence that will be determined at his sentencing on November 18.
He was charged along with his compatriot Abdul Kadir, and Russell Defreitas, who worked at the JFK airport terminal, in what authorities said was a scheme to blow up the airport’s jet fuel tanks and pipelines.
The trial for Kadir and Defreitas is set to open this week.
The plot was exposed by US authorities in June 2007, and US justice officials at the time said the suspects had links to international Islamist terrorist cells in the Caribbean and South America.
A fourth suspect, Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad, has had his case postponed for medical reasons.
Oh my. All the while i thought they were innocent. If this one pleads guilty it is only safe to assume the others are too
Not necessarily…you never know what went on behind the scenes…plus…admission of guilt in a US court of law is rarely equal to actually guilty. If he fought the case he faced 30 years at least…but by pleading guilty he only does 15 at the most, maybe even less. Do the math. Which would you rather?: Fighting your 27% chance of winning case and losing to basically a death sentence? Or taking the loss and coming out of jail eventually to enjoy life? Hhmmmm, I wonder. Same situation faced by Roger Khan. I guarantee you that Nur is smiling right now…
Interesting point of view Jamal. But bare in mind the stigma automatically attached to the ‘guilty’ plea. Having a jury find you guilty is refutable, while admitting guilt is something else entirely. In my opinion there is no amount of freedom that will make up for the situation(s) one would find themselves in for admitting to something like that.
The (added) stain on our country’s image is irrevocable. First it was organized crime and drugs, now its terrorism -an offense considered (today in the US) to be more serious than individual murder.
Plus, his admission -be it honest or based on whatever condition of reduced sentence, casts a serious shadow on his co-defendants. It will be automatically assumed that his admission is an admission of the others due to their nationalities, and whatever else they have in common.
The notion of innocent until proven guilty was thrown out of the window for the remaining defendants. Any juror in his/her right mind will unconsciously connect the dots, factual or otherwise, and CONVICT the others.