Airport worker denies threatening Obama

An airport security guard who was overheard saying he had “cut a hole in a fence to be able to shoot” Barack Obama pleaded not guilty to making terror threats against the US president.

John Brek appeared via video feed from the Essex County Jail, New Jersey, where he has been held since his arrest on Tuesday night.

Clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, the 55-year-old Brek didn’t speak during the hearing but had his plea entered by his attorney, Moses Rambarran.

Brek also pleaded not guilty to possession of hollow point bullets, which is prohibited in New Jersey, and to receiving stolen property for allegedly having a stolen gun among the more than 40 firearms recovered from his residence on Tuesday.

“We really have to take these matters seriously,” Municipal Judge Amilkar Velez-Lopez said.

“He had a very real possibility of carrying out those threats. He would have been in close proximity to the president.”

Mr Rambarran said his client “knows he has some serious challenges against him and knows he must go through legal channels to get himself vindicated.”

He said Brek’s arrest raises constitutional issues.

“In the United States of America, we are allowed to make offensive, distasteful, repugnant statements,” he said. “These are not prosecutable as a crime.”

An airline worker standing at a coffee cart at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday afternoon heard Brek saying he “cut a hole in a fence to be able to shoot” Mr Obama, according to the arrest warrant.

Mr Obama arrived in Newark late on Wednesday afternoon to appear at a campaign rally for Governor Jon S. Corzine.

Brek is employed by a private security firm.