PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - Two men allegedly involved in a plot to attack New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport were in custody in Trinidad and Tobago on Saturday and the police commissioner said authorities were scouring the Caribbean country for a third suspect still at large.Trevor Paul, the top police official in the twin-island nation off Venezuela's coast, identified the arrested suspects as Abdul Kadir, 55, a Guyanese Muslim and former member of the South American nation's Parliament, and Kareem Ibrahim, a 56-year-old from Trinidad. Both were arrested on U.S. warrants and are suspected of involvement in a plan to blow up a fuel line feeding the airport, Paul told a news conference. Abdel Nur of Guyana was still being sought in Trinidad, U.S. officials said.
"The FBI did inform the Trinidad law enforcement authorities of the fact that three men were wanted in the U.S. on warrants in connection with a terrorist plot. We have been working with the FBI for some time, but this last request was made yesterday," Paul said. Paul said the two suspects would likely be extradited to the U.S. after court hearings in Trinidad. He did not say when their first court appearance in Port-of-Spain would be.
U.S authorities said Kadir and Nur were longtime associates of a Trinidadian radical Muslim group, Jamaat al Muslimeen, which launched an unsuccessful rebellion in 1990 that left 24 dead.
| More rage from the Religion of Pieces™. |
Kadir's wife, Isha Kadir, told The Associated Press that her husband, a Shiite Muslim, is innocent. She said her husband flew from Guyana to Trinidad on Thursday on his way to Venezuela, where he planned to pick up a travel visa to attend an Islamic religious conference in Iran. Kadir was arrested at Trinidad's international airport on Friday after he had boarded a flight to Venezuela, Paul said. "We have no interest in blowing up anything in the U.S," Kadir's wife said. "We have relatives in the U.S."
| "We don't what our relatives blown up. The rest of you are on your own," she added. |