The U.S. Embassy in Georgetown today condemned the recently passed resolution by Guyana’s National Assembly, which offered sympathy to the family of late Guyana Member of Parliament, Abdul Kadir, who died in a US Prison last year, while serving time as a convicted terrorist.
Kadir had been sentenced to life in prison in the United States after being found guilty of plotting a 2007 terrorist attack at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
In its statement this morning, the US Embassy said members of the National Assembly, “chose to honor a man who conspired to kill innocent people from across the United States and around the world”.
The embassy added that the “resolution is an insensitive and thoughtless act, which demonstrates the National Assembly’s disregard for the gravity of Kadir’s actions.”
According to the Embassy, while speaking at an International Peace Conference recently, U.S. Ambassador Sarah-Ann Lynch held up Guyana as “a model to the world on religious tolerance and understanding.”
The embassy now says that the National Assembly’s resolution of April 26 draws into question that reputation and also comes on the heels of Guyana’s historic cooperation with the United States on the extradition of an alleged murderer.
It said Members of Parliament have placed this resolution in direct contradiction to the efforts of security cooperation between the two countries.
“With this resolution, honoring a convicted terrorist, members of Guyana’s National Assembly have left a stain on their legacy as representatives of the Guyanese people and on their commitment to the rule of law”, the Embassy statement said.
Abdul Kadir, who also served as a Mayor of Linden before becoming a Member of Parliament, had an unblemished criminal record before he was charged along with three other men in the JFK terror plot.
The US Authorities had used the services of a convicted US drug trafficker as part of their probe of the terrorism plot.
All four men were extradited to the US from Trinidad and Tobago and underwent trial in New York, where they were all convicted.
Throughout the trial, Kadir had maintained his innocence.
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