28/02/2005

British man admits to 'shoe bomb' plot

A British man has pleaded guilty to conspiring to blow up an airliner using a 'shoe bomb' in a terrorist attack

Saajid Badat, 25, from Gloucester had been charged with conspiring with Richard Reid and a Belgian to make the device.

The court heard that Badat had trained as a suicide bomber and had been given the explosive device, following training in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The prosecutor Richard Horwell said that it was intended that Badat would use the device to blow up a plane, en route between Europe and the US, just three months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, Mr Horwell said, Badat decided not to go through with the plan although he kept the bomb at his home in Gloucester, where it was discovered during searches, as part of a joint surveillance operation between police and M15, which led to Badat's arrest.

Reid, who is also British, was arrested in December 2001 after he tried to detonate an explosive device in his shoe, similar to the one Badat had on a American Airlines flight between Paris and Miami.

Reid, 30, was sentenced to three life sentences and is currently in prison in America.

(KMcA/SP)

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