Psychiatric exam for JFK airport plot suspect

By Linda Hutchinson-Jafar

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (Reuters) - A man charged with plotting to blow up New York's JFK airport must have a psychiatric test to see if he can be sent to the United States for trial, a Trinidadian judge ruled on Wednesday.

The examination is to determine if the Trinidadian suspect, 62-year-old Kareem Ibrahim, is fit to enter a plea and travel on a plane if extradited.

Ibrahim is one of four men indicted in New York City in June on charges of plotting to blow up buildings, fuel tanks and pipelines at John F. Kennedy airport, which handles some 1,000 flights and more than 120,000 passengers daily.

He and two Guyanese suspects, Abdel Nur, 57, and Abdul Kadir, 59, were arrested in Trinidad in June and ordered extradited in August. They are fighting the extradition order in an appeals court this week.

A fourth suspect, Russell de Freitas, was arrested in New York and is in jail pending trial. A naturalized U.S. citizen from Guyana who once worked as a cargo handler at the airport, he has pleaded not guilty.

Justice Nolan Bereaux also ordered a full medical examination for Ibrahim, whose lawyer said the defendant was suffering from an adverse reaction from medicine he is taking.

During Wednesday's appellate hearing, defense attorney Fyard Hosein said the U.S. government had not presented any evidence to show the men were involved in such a plot.

He said the men lacked the funds and capacity to organize it and had been entrapped by an informant who was working with U.S. law enforcement in order to reduce his own sentence for drug trafficking.