(CNN) -- A man who pleaded guilty last summer in a plot to blow up fuel tanks and the fuel pipeline under New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison.
Judge Dora L. Irizarry, who presides over the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, handed down the sentence against Abdel Nur, one of four people charged in the plot. Nur, a native of Guyana, pleaded guilty on June 29, 2010, to providing material support to a terrorist conspiracy.
Three other defendants had pleaded not guilty in the plot. Two of those men have been tried and convicted.
Abdul Kadir, also a native Guyanan, and Russell Defreitas, a U.S. citizen, were convicted in July of engaging in a terrorist conspiracy. Kadir was sentenced in December to life in prison, and Defreitas is scheduled to be sentenced in February.
Kareem Ibrahim, a native of Trinidad, is still awaiting trial on the same charges as Kadir and Defreitas.
According to court documents, Nur attempted to locate al Qaeda explosives expert Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah, and introduced the other plotters to Yasin Abu Bakr, leader of Jamaat Al Muslimeen, a group that had engaged in terrorist attacks aimed at overthrowing the government of Trinidad.
The men were charged in 2007 with conspiracy to attack a public transportation system, conspiracy to destroy a building with fire and explosives, conspiracy to attack aircraft and aircraft materials, conspiracy to destroy an international airport and conspiracy to attack a mass transportation facility.
Kadir also was charged with surveillance of a transportation facility.
Defreitas was a cargo worker at JFK. Kadir had served as a member of Guyana's parliament.
In the trial of Kadir and Defreitas, prosecutors said the men tapped into an international network of Muslim extremists to develop the plot and start work toward carrying it out.
A criminal complaint accused the men of obtaining satellite photos of the airport and using Defreitas to conduct surveillance and identify potential targets and escape routes.
An informant secretly taped conversations in which Defreitas described the symbolic importance of targeting JFK, the complaint said.
"Anytime you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States," the complaint quoted him as saying. "If you hit that, this whole country will be in mourning. It's like you kill the man twice".
All three men have been in U.S. custody since 2008, when a court in Trinidad rejected their attempt to avoid extradition.
New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said officials were concerned about attacks not only on the airport but also on the 40-mile aviation fuel pipeline that runs from a fuel tank farm at JFK through Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens. CNN
