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NEW YORK, CMC – A defence lawyer says two Guyanese men accused of plotting to blow up the fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport here three years ago were just boastful losers who lied to each other to make themselves seem important.

“This talk is the kind of trash you hear in a barbershop,” Mildred Whalen, lawyer for Russell DeFreitas, said during closing arguments at her client's trial at Brooklyn Federal Court on Tuesday.  

“It's pretty clear that these guys have seen too many Bruce Willis movies and don't have enough to fill up their time,” she added, describing DeFreitas as a “weak-minded, foolish man with a big mouth.”

But prosecutors claim that DeFreitas, 66, and Abdul Kadir, 58, a former Member of Parliament in Guyanese, meant to wreak havoc.

The two men, accused in the terrorist plot, hoped to cause a massive explosion that would kill thousands at JFK and avenge US oppression of Muslims, said Assistant US Attorney Zainab Ahmad in closing arguments earlier during the week.

She charged that the defendants wanted to blow up jet fuel tanks at the sprawling airport, causing an explosion “so massive that it could be seen from far, far away.”

Their vision prompted them to code name the plot “The Shining Light,” Ahmad said.

Prosecutors say DeFreitas did reconnaissance on the airport, sought the help of a militant Muslim group in Trinidad and Tobago along with Kadir, and dreamt of delivering a devastating economic blow to the United States.  

Ahmad said that DeFreitas, a naturalised US citizen, “is a classic homegrown extremist.”

At trial, the government’s evidence included tapes of DeFreitas that showed he was determined to avenge the mistreatment of Muslims in the United States and abroad with an attack that would “dwarf 9/11.”

As part of the alleged plot, Ahmad claimed that DeFreitas and the informant traveled to Guyana to try to meet with Kadir and show him homemade surveillance videotapes of the airport’s so-called fuel farms.

The alleged plotters also discussed reaching out to Adnam Shukrijumah, an al-Qaida operative and explosives expert, who was believed to be hiding out in the Caribbean at the time, she further claimed.

While testifying on his own behalf, Kadir denied he was a militant Muslim who spied for Iran for years before joining the alleged JFK scheme.

According to the indictment unsealed in 2007, the men along with Abdel Nur, 60, who was extradited from Trinidad and Tobago to stand trial and Trinidadian Kareem Ibrahim, 59, had hoped to "cause greater destruction than in the September 11 attacks" by using explosives to ignite a fuel pipeline feeding JFK and to destroy the airport and parts of Queens, where the line runs underground.

The authorities said the plot, which the men code-named Chicken Farm, never got past the planning stages.

Under the plea agreement made public earlier this month, Nur has avoided the possibility of life in prison if convicted. He now faces up to 15 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Ibrahim has been granted a separate trial after he had gone on a hunger strike in prison and became ill. It is now unclear when he would be tried.

CMC/nk/pr/10

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