Newsday says: Controversy over informants' roles in JFK probe WASHINGTON -- He is a twice-convicted drug dealer trying to avoid jail time, according to court papers. At the behest of his police handlers, who tantalized him with the prospect of a commuted sentence, the dealer befriended Russell Defreitas to investigate a tip that Defreitas might be involved in a terror plot against the United States.It seems to me I've heard that song before; it's from an old familiar score...
The dealer, identified in court papers only as the Source, was so convincing that Defreitas exclaimed that he must have been "sent by Allah" to help blow up the fuel lines at Kennedy Airport, according to the criminal complaint.
By all accounts, the informant gave a masterful performance that appeared to shape the plot's development: After winning the confidence of the 63-year-old Guyanese-born U.S. citizen, the Source repeatedly drove Defreitas, who had no car or money, to conduct airport "surveillance," bought plane tickets for the two of them, as well as a third man, to fly to Trinidad last month, and trumpeted his jihadist sympathies, declaring that the greatest way for a Muslim to die was as a martyr, say court papers.
All the time, he was wearing a wire and was being paid by the government.
Some Guyanese Muslims became concerned, for instance, when the informant demanded to be taken to al-Qaida operative Adnan El Shukrijumah, who holds a Guyanese passport and is on the FBI's most-wanted list. "I don't know how to take you to him, I don't even know the man, and why would I want to get involved with a terrorist?" one man told the informant, according to a source.So there you have it! They're all guilty!! Lock 'em up and throw away the key.
Waddaya mean, "due process"? They're Muslims, aren't they?
And in any case, due process is dead. Chris Floyd:
This is a pattern that we've seen over and over with Bush's Terror War captives. Innocent people are seized -- or bought -- by American security forces, who then attempt to force the captive to become an informant. Those who refuse are then plunged into the bowels of Bush's torture-and-terror apparatus. It is a crude, brutal, indeed Stalinist way of trying to create an intelligence network on the fly, and on the cheap.It creates a network but it doesn't provide any intelligence. But then again, who needs intelligence when the policy is already decided?