Posted on 04/22/2005 10:37:42 AM PDT by Former Military Chick
LONDON (AP) - A British judge Friday imposed a 13-year prison sentence on a man who admitted conspiring with shoe-bomber Richard Reid to blow up a U.S.-bound trans-Atlantic jet in 2001.
Prosecutors said they believe British-born Saajid Badat, 25, may have backed out of an alleged plot with Reid, who was subdued by passengers when he attempted to detonate a bomb aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22, 2001.
``Turning away from crime in circumstances such as these constitutes a powerful mitigating factor,'' Judge Adrian Fulford said. ``It can take considerable courage to plead guilty to offenses of this kind.''
Badat's guilty plea in February was the first major conviction for a terrorist plot in Britain since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
British convicts typically are eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of their sentence, so Badat could be released in a little more than eight years.
Fulford said Badat had been part of a plot to commit a ``wicked and inhuman crime'' that would have killed hundreds of people.
``Sitting in the civilized and muted surroundings of the Old Bailey (courthouse), it is easy to forget exactly what you planned,'' Fulford said.
But the judge said he believed Badat had a genuine change of heart and balanced the need for strong deterrents in terrorism cases with Badat's evident remorse.
Fulford said he hoped the sentence would send a message to others considering terrorism that a decision to turn away from violence would benefit them in court.
Had Badat been convicted at trial without pleading guilty, the judge said he would have recommended a sentence of at least 50 years.
In letters to his parents read in court Friday, Badat said he was disillusioned with Britain.
``I have a sincere desire to sell my soul to Allah in return for paradise,'' he wrote in a letter prosecutors said was found along with explosives at his home.
Prosecutor Richard Horwell said Badat had confessed immediately, telling officers as they drove to the police station: ``I was asked to do a shoe-bombing like Richard Reid.''
He told the police about a green suitcase in his bedroom which contained a fuse and detonator and another suitcase which contained explosives inside a sock.
He reportedly told officers he did not know how to dispose of the items, and added: ``An Arab gave me these things in Afghanistan.''
Defense lawyer Michael Mansfield said the tale of how a ``conscientious, hardworking student'' came to consider mass murder ``is a story of our times.''
Badat's Muslim faith ``in one sense took him to the brink, the very brink of disaster, and at the same time it was same faith that pulled him back,'' Mansfield said.
Mansfield said Badat felt deep remorse and wanted to urge anyone else considering terrorist acts to ``have the courage to turn back and save lives.''
Badat, of Gloucester, England, had been accused of conspiring with Reid, who was convicted in the United States, and with a Belgian man to make the explosive device. Reid was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to U.S. charges.
Horwell said before Badat's plea that he had booked a ticket to fly from Manchester, England, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, in preparation for a flight to the United States on which he planned to detonate his bomb.
``But he did not take that flight. We accept by then he had withdrawn from the conspiracy which by then he had been party to for an appreciable period of time,'' Horwell said.
He said Badat sent an e-mail on Dec. 14, 2001, indicating he might withdraw from the plot.
Horwell said Badat kept the device at his home in Gloucester but had separated the fuse and detonator from the plastic explosive.
Prosecutors had said Badat received training both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that while in Afghanistan he was given an explosive device designed to evade airport security and destroy an aircraft in flight.
Badat returned to Britain on Dec. 10, 2001, with the device in his possession. The detonating cords on Reid's device matched the cord on Badat's bomb, prosecutors said.
In October, a U.S. grand jury in Boston charged Badat with attempted murder, trying to destroy an aircraft and other counts related to the alleged conspiracy.
Police said Belgian telephone cards found on Reid were used by Badat to get in touch with Reid's terrorist contact Nizar Trabelsi, who is now in jail in Belgium.
Trabelsi, a Tunisian who played professional soccer for several German teams, was sentenced to the maximum 10 years in prison in 2003. He had admitted planning to drive a car bomb into the canteen of a Belgian air base where U.S. nuclear weapons are believed to be stored.
Acquaintances in Gloucester had described Badat as a quiet, studious young man who had given sermons at a local mosque. His parents reportedly emigrated from Malawi in the 1960s and settled in Gloucester.
I am not sure I understand his crime if he in fact backed out. Backing out of a conspiracy before the conspiracy commits a criminal act ought relieve one of the imputed guilt of the conspiracy,
It is not illegal to think of committing a crime.
And the award for ‘most audaciously incorrect post on Free Republic 2011’ goes to.............you!
Have a medal and a cup of tea, petal.
On the British Army’s ‘ARRSE’ forum, they have a system whereby trolls and idiots are not banned, but labeled ‘Oxygen Thief’ by the mods, on the understanding that thereafter they will be ignored by the other members. Seems like the best thing to do with an obvious idiot troll like this guy crying out for undeserved attention....
Neah, that was 1814.
Pay no attention to the vaporing moron.
Security.Blogs.CNN.com: "TRANSATLANTIC SHOE BOMBER KNEW BIN LADEN" by Paul Cruickshank (SNIPPET: "Saajid Badat, a U.K. terrorist convicted for plotting in December 2001 to blow up a shoe bomb on a transatlantic airliner heading from Europe to the United States, revealed in a U.S. court Thursday that he met Osama bin Laden several times in Afghanistan between 2000-2001. When he pleaded guilty in 2005, Badat indicated that had been directed by al Qaeda to launch the plot...") (April 20, 2012, 03:23 am ET) (Read More...)
DAILY MAILco.uk: "BOMBER FREED BY SECRET JUSTICE: TERRORIST RELEASED AFTER SUPERGRASS DEAL IN CLOSED COURT" by Rebecca Camber, Jack Doyle and Katherine Faulkner (SNIPPET: "Saajid Muhammad Badat plotted with Richard Reid to blow up a transatlantic flight but changed his mind at the last minute He is helping the case against Adis Medunjanin, alleged to be at the centre of an al Qaida plot to bomb the New York subway Deal struck in 2009 but kept secret until now - he was released in March 2010") (April 16, 2012) (Read More...)
GUARDIAN.co.uk: "FROM GLOUCESTER TO AFGHANISTAN: THE MAKING OF A SHOE BOMBER Saajid Badat this week pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a plane. What drove this quiet football fan to thoughts of terror?" by Mark Honigsbaum and Vikram Dodd (March 2005) (Read More...)
“Secret life of shoe bomber Saajid Muhammad Badat funded by the taxpayer”
By Mark Hughes, New York
10:00PM BST 23 Apr 2012
SNIPPET: “The British taxpayer has paid for a new home and funded the business interests of a convicted terrorist after he agreed to turn supergrass against al-Qaeda in a secret deal with the authorities, a court heard on Monday.”
CAPTION: “Saajid Muhammad Badat said he instructed up to 15 potential suicide bombers on how to make explosives Photo: Court art/ jane Rosenberg”
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