Brooklyn judge sentences black Imam to life in prison for planned JFK terror plot

Ibrahim 'abandoned the true tenants of his religion' by participating in the plot, U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement.

An Imam has been sentenced to life in prison for joining a failed plot to firebomb John F. Kennedy Airport in 2007 by blowing up jet fuel supplies with the help of a notorious al-Qaida explosives expert.

Sentenced to life: Kareem Ibrahim pictured
in 2007 leaving court in Trinidad

A federal judge in Brooklyn gave Kareem Ibrahim, the leader of the Shiite Muslim community in Trinidad and Tobago, the life term on Friday after a jury found him guilty last year of conspiracy.

Three other men were charged in the plot: Co-defendants Russell Defreitas, a Guyanese Shi'ite, former JFK cargo handler who spoke of punishing the United States with an attack that would "dwarf 9/11"- and Abdel Kadir, an engineer and former member of Guyana's parliament, both were sentenced to life in prison. Abdel Nur was sentenced to 15 years behind bars.

At a pair of trials, prosecutors accused the men of wanting to kill thousands of people and cripple the American economy and avenge U.S. mistreatment of Muslims worldwide by using explosives to blow up the fuel tanks and the underground pipelines that run through an adjacent Queens neighbourhood.  

Read more in the Daily Mail, 15 Jan 2012.