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Kadir was a victim of entrapment

Apr 29, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

A parliamentarian convicted of an offence is required to vacate his or her seat in the National Assembly. Apparently, however, there is no prohibition against the same parliament paying tribute to someone who has been convicted of ‘high’ crimes.
Abdul Kadir, a former member of parliament, was convicted in the United States of conspiring to commit a terrorist act on the United States. It is alleged that he was part of a plot to blow up petrol storage tanks at the John F. Kennedy Airport.
He was nabbed in Trinidad and extradited to the United States where he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment (without the possibility of parole).  He died last June in prison.
He had served as a member of parliament for the People’s National Congress between 2001 and 2006 and had also been a Mayor of Linden during a period when there were no municipal elections.
Last week, almost ten months after his death, the APNU+AFC suddenly and surprisingly moved a motion in the National Assembly for that body to pay tribute to Kadir’s dedicated service to the parliament and asking for an expression of sympathy to be conveyed to his family. The motion was tabled in the name of the government.
Just why the government would take ten months to pay tribute to Kadir is not known. Whether it fully considered the implications of its motion is also not known.
When Kadir was nabbed by the Americans, the PNCR took the position that he was innocent until proven guilty. The party never disowned or disassociated itself from him. But it also never explained why after 2006, it had nothing to do with him or why he only served for a short period as Mayor in a PNCR stronghold.
Kadir was a victim of entrapment by the American authorities desperate to prove that its campaign against terrorism on American soil was successful. The Americans had encouraged a convicted drug dealer to come to find one of the world’s foremost terrorist.
The Americans were not initially interested in Kadir. He was probably not on their radar. Their main interest was El-Shukrijumah a top al-Qaeda operative and explosives expert, who plotted to blow up New York’s subway system and who it was suspected had links to Guyana. The informant who was working with the Americans was used to ferret out El Shukrijumah. Instead he met a man who claimed that he wanted to blow up the fuel tanks at JFK airport and who introduced him to Kadir.
Kadir’s lawyer in an article published after his death had maintained that Kadir was not a terrorist and that there was never any plot to blow up any fuel tanks. He said that Kadir was a victim of an informant attempting to have his sentence for drug-related offences reduced. He said the so-called plot to blow up JFK was a concoction, implying that the capability to execute such a plot never existed.
It is not clear whether the APNU+AFC believed that Kadir was a victim of criminal entrapment or whether the tabling of that motion was merely a way of thumping its nose in the face of the Americans. But even if the government did feel that Kadir was a victim of criminal entrapment, how can its motion be justified given what Kadir confessed to during his trial?
Kadir admitted during his trial that he had spied for the Iranians. He confessed to passing information about the Guyana Defence Force to the Iranian Embassy in Venezuela. In some countries this would be considered as treason.
Supporters of the APNU+AFC now find themselves in a moral dilemma in  justifying its government motion last week. But that is not anything unusual in hypocritical societies.

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