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Letter to the editor

Terror charges are wrong, wife says

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published June 3, 2007

At her home in Guyana, Isha Kadir watched the breaking news from America that said her husband of 33 years had been accused of plotting to blow up fuel lines at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

She knew that her husband's accusers had got it wrong and should check their facts, she said.

"I'm a Shia Muslim and personally, we have nothing to do with terrorism, nothing whatever, " said Kadir, 56, during a telephone interview from Guyana Saturday. "My husband does not dislike America. I have family in America. I have my sister in America. We're a devoted Muslim family. My husband has lots of family in America."

Kadir said she learned about the allegations against Abdul Kadir, 55, Saturday morning.

"I was shocked, " she said. "At first my heart skipped a beat and some of my tears rolled down, but then I have to be strong. Having nine children and 18 grandchildren, I have to be strong."

Isha Kadir said her husband has never visited America but has been to Iran. The last time he was there was in 1998. Two of their children studied Islamic theology there. A son spent seven years in Iran and a daughter six.

Abdul Kadir was traveling through Trinidad to Venezuela to pick up a visa for Iran when he was arrested, his wife said. She denied that her husband had any contact with Jamaat al Muslimeen, the radical Islamic group from Trinidad. She and her husband lived in Trinidad years ago when he studied civil engineering at the University of the West Indies, but they have no contact with Jamaat or al-Qaida and don't support their philosophy, she said.

Isha Kadir said she believed that two Muslims from America who visited her husband in Guyana about two weeks ago also have been implicated in the alleged Kennedy airport plot. She said she has heard that one of the men who visited was an informant.

Abdul Kadir is a former mayor of Linden, a town in Guyana. He worked as an engineer in the bauxite industry. He was a member of Parliament representing the Peoples National Congress Reform Party from 2001 to 2006.

It was while at the University of Guyana that he met and married his wife, a former police officer. He was a Roman Catholic before his conversion to Islam in 1973. His wife is a former Methodist. "We embraced Islam together, " she said.

She has two children from a previous marriage, and they had seven children together. She wants Americans to know that Abdul Kadir is a very good husband, "a very good father to his children and he loves his religion. He is very devoted to his religion."

[Last modified June 3, 2007, 01:45:34]