UK citizen pleads guilty to shoe bomber charges

A British-born Pakistani Muslim pleaded guilty on Monday to charges that he was linked to extremist plans to blow up a plane using a bomb co...

A British-born Pakistani Muslim pleaded guilty on Monday to charges that he was linked to extremist plans to blow up a plane using a bomb concealed in his shoe.

Saajid Badat had been arrested by the UK police following a long-term investigation, which led to his family home in Gloucester. Born to Pakistani parents who moved to Britain from Malawi, Badat grew up in a home of working class origins from where he went on to achieve strong academic results in school. After his schooling, his search for learning Islam took him to West Asia and also Pakistan. Terrorist investigators also believe that he crossed the border into Afghanistan to train in an al-Qaeda camp and was recruited as a potential suicide bomber.

Among Badat’s co-conspirators was Richard Reid, a British national, who was also sentenced for attempted shoe bomb attacks. He liaised with Badat in order to try to obtain replacement passports to gain multiple travel documents. On September 11, 2001, Badat went to the British Embassy in Brussels, Belgium, to gain a replacement passport and await orders.

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By November, Reid and Badat went to Pakistan and to Afghanistan to obtain equipment for creating a shoe bomb. The explosives were brought back home and Badat stored them in a suitcase in his home. However, he then contacted his conduit to inform him that he had second thoughts about carrying out the attack. What made Badat change his mind is not known, nor why he retained the equipment.

Badat’s admission of guilt comes as Prime Minister Tony Blair tries to push through Parliament a controversial Prevention of Terrorism Bill that would allow sweeping powers for detaining suspected terrorists.