Trinidadian Imam Kareem Ibrahim failed in his bid yesterday to overturn his terrorism-related charges and life imprisonment sentence in the United States. Ibrahim, 68, of Cane Farm, Tacarigua, was convicted in 2011, along with Russell Defreitas and Abdul Kadir, for hatching a conspiracy to blow up New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport in 2007.
Yesterday, a Reuters report published in the Chicago Tribune stated that the US appeals court had upheld Ibrahim’s conviction and sentence. The report stated that “Ibrahim, 68, was unable to sway the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to reverse the 2011 guilty verdict on terrorism-related charges or the sentence of life.” According to the article, “the federal appeals court said a jury was entitled to find Ibrahim and his co-conspirators guilty of planning to blow up the airport.”
Prosecutors had argued that “Ibrahim provided religious instruction and support to the group planning the failed attack, which involved destroying buildings, fuel tanks and pipelines at JFK.” In Ibrahim’s appeal, “lawyers argued their client’s testimony was improperly limited, that evidence seized from Kadir’s home shouldn’t have been admitted, and that there wasn’t enough evidence to support his conviction. They also challenged his sentence as unreasonable.”
However, the “three-judge appellate panel rejected all of his arguments and upheld the sentence.” The report said Michael Hueston, a lawyer for Ibrahim, said Ibrahim was considering “whether to seek further appeal, including a petition for review by the US Supreme Court.” The upholding of Ibrahim’s conviction and sentence follows a similar ruling in May, in which there was an “upholding the convictions of co-conspirators Defreitas and Kadir, who were found guilty in August 2010 and also received life sentences.”
A fourth man charged in the case, Abdel Nur, pleaded guilty in June 2011 and received a 15-year prison sentence. Ibrahim was arrested in Trinidad in June 2007 and was later extradited to the United States. According to the report, prosecutors said Ibrahim joined the plot in May 2007 after meeting with Defreitas and a confidential FBI informant in Trinidad. Ibrahim, among other things, gave them advice on avoiding attention by US authorities.
In May 2011, a jury in Brooklyn, New York, found Ibrahim guilty on five terrorism-related counts.