By IANS
Port-of-Spain : Trinidad and Tobago’s chief magistrate has ruled that three men accused of plotting to blow up New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport should be extradited to the US, the Spanish news agency EFE reported.
But judge Sherman McNichols said that Trinidadian Kareem Ibrahim, 62, and Guyanese nationals Abdul Kadir, 59 and Abdel Nur, 57, have 15 days to appeal his decision in the high court.
One of the attorneys representing Ibrahim and Kadir said he planned to file a motion asking the high court to block the extradition.
McNichols handed down his ruling after three hours of arguments by defence counsel and prosecutors from the office of Trinidad’s attorney general.
Defence lawyers at the hearing Monday contended that the evidence offered by US investigators was insufficient to prove the existence of a conspiracy to blow up fuel storage tanks and pipelines at JFK Airport.
The chief magistrate was not convinced, telling the defendants: “The court is satisfied that a prime facie case is made out to each of you.”
A fourth suspect, Guyanese-born US citizen Russell De Freitas, is already in custody in New York.
The FBI has described the 63-year-old former airport employee as the mastermind of the purported conspiracy.