PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):

High Court judge Charmaine Pemberton will today hear applications by three men, including two nationals from Guyana, challenging their extradition to the United States (U.S.) on charges of being involved in a plot to blow up the John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Attorneys representing Trinidadian Abdul Kareem Ibrahiim, 62, as well as Guyanese Abdel Nur, 57, and Abdul Kadir, 56, filed habeas corpus applications claiming that their clients were being held unlawfully.

The applications were filed two weeks after Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls ordered the extradition of the men to the U.S. to answer six charges of conspiring to "cause death, serious bodily injury and extensive destruction" by blowing up the fuel supply to the New York airport.

They have been charged jointly with Guyanese-born American resident Russell Defreitas, who is being held in a New York jail.