Trinidad orders three extradited in New York plot

PORT OF SPAIN, Aug 6 (Reuters) A judge in Trinidad today ordered three suspects extradited to the United States to face trial on charges they plotted to blow up New York's John F Kennedy international Airport.

The three were arrested in Trinidad and were among four men charged in June with conspiring to blow up the airport's jet-fuel tanks and part of the 40-mile (64 km) pipeline feeding them.

Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls ruled at a brief hearing that there was enough evidence to justify extraditing Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad and Abdul Kadir and Abdel Nur of Guyana.

''You are committed to stand trial and you are remanded in custody to await your extradition to the United States,'' he told them.

The extradition cannot take place until a 15-day appeals period has passed, the magistrate said.

US prosecutors have described the suspects as Islamist extremists plotting an attack they hoped would prove more destructive than the Sept. 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Center in 2001.

The fourth suspect, Russell Defreitas, is a US citizen born in Guyana and a former cargo handler at Kennedy airport, which handles about 1,000 flights and more than 120,000 passengers daily.

Defreitas was arrested in New York and pleaded not guilty last month.

All four men face life in prison if convicted on charges that include conspiring to attack a mass transportation facility, conspiring to destroy a public building by explosion and conspiring to destroy international airport facilities.

US authorities initially said a fuel tank and gas line explosion could have destroyed large swaths of New York City, but have also said the plan was more ''aspirational'' than operational and posed no immediate threat.

REUTERS AE VC2312