Informant's Origins Leaked

GEORGETOWN, Guyana - The whistleblower in the plot to blow up Kennedy Airport was a U.S. citizen of Dominican origin who traveled here in the guise of a merchant and unsuccessfully pressed Muslims to introduce him to a key al-Qaida suspect, Guyanese media reported yesterday.

Local newspapers published a photograph of the solemn, bearded man and said he traveled here in September under a Latino name.

The informant said he was Muslim and used an Islamic name in Muslim circles, the Kaieteur News and the Guyana Chronicle reported.

Some Muslims here told Newsday they recognized the man's face and said he had struck a pious figure at local mosques.

The informant also posed once as a Cuban doctor and "had his way with a number of women," one source told Newsday. The man began coming here two or three years ago, the source said.

Using an Anglo name, the informant flew here May 10 with bomb plot suspect Russell Defreitas, a Guyanese-born Muslim and Brooklyn resident, on North American Airlines, sources said. They requested vegetarian meals, customary for many Muslims. U.S. court papers also say the informant and Defreitas flew here on that date.

The daughter of one bomb plot suspect on Tuesday said the informant also used a second Islamic name.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf declined comment on the names.

It was not clear who initially leaked the information or whether it would thwart continuing investigations. Guyana generally has friendly relations with the United States and authorities here have pledged to cooperate fully with U.S. investigators.

Relatives of three bomb plot suspects have angrily accused the informant of a set-up. Court papers say the informant is a convicted drug dealer who authorities paid to go undercover and that his sentence is pending as part of the deal.

Media here said the informant approached local Muslims as a businessman interested in buying products, including soap stone. The reports said he met Kennedy bomb plot suspect Abdul Kadir, a former lawmaker, while researching the possible purchase of a tropical fruit known as "fat pork." The fruit grows near Linden, Guyana's second-largest city, where Kadir is a former mayor.

Muslims "chased the man away" after he pressed them to put him in contact with Adnan Shukrijumah, a suspected al-Qaida operative interested in attacking the United States, a source said.

U.S. authorities are believed to have been concerned about Kennedy plotters hooking up with Shukrijumah because he is half-Guyanese, carries a Guyana passport and has traveled in the Caribbean in recent years. However, authorities also may have been trying to use the informant to locate Shukrijumah.

Police searched the Georgetown house where the informant allegedly stayed and questioned a cleaning woman there, sources said. Police also yesterday spent nearly five hours questioning Isha Kadir, the wife of suspect Kadir, who says her husband is innocent.

The questioning prompted an outcry from Isha Kadir's sons. They said she was lured in by police who claimed they wanted to apologize for having revealed they found maps of underground pipelines in Kadir's home. U.S. court papers allege Kadir offered his expertise as a civil engineer to review plans to bomb pipelines at Kennedy.

Isha Kadir told Newsday the maps were blueprints of a water project in Linden on which Kadir had been consulted. She said she was "outraged" police had mentioned them in the context of the plot.

Kadir's wife has said her husband is being framed because he has ties to Iran. Newsday has found no indication that Kadir's links to that country are illegal.

Staff writer Carol Eisenberg contributed to this story from Washington, D.C.

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