The U.S. government chastised the South American country of Guyana on Monday for honouring the life of a former politician convicted of plotting to blow up fuel tanks at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.

The U.S. said in a statement that a legislative resolution upholding the life and work of Abdul Kadir was an "insensitive and thoughtless act" that disregarded the gravity of his actions.

Officials said they were surprised that "Guyana chose to honour a man who conspired to kill innocent people from across the United States and around the world," adding that, "members of Guyana's assembly have left a stain on their legacy as representatives of the Guyanese people and on their commitment to the rule of law."

Kadir and three other men were sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2010. Kadir died last year and was buried in the bauxite mining city of Linden, where he once served as mayor.

The former civil engineer and former member of Parliament maintained he was set up by government informants and had no intention of carrying out the alleged plot.

Federal suspects said the suspects tried to obtain financial and operational support from an al-Qaida operative in the Caribbean region and from other terrorist organizations such as Jamaat al Muslimeen, a radical Islamic group that attempted a deadly coup in its base country of Trinidad in 1990.