Posted on 01/25/2002 9:30:58 AM PST by grimalkin
US detectives have found evidence that alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid did not act alone.
The FBI has discovered someone else's hair and palm prints in the explosive-filled shoes, with which Reid allegedly attempted to blow up a transatlantic flight.
The shoes have undergone a battery of forensic tests in a bid to find the source of the explosives.
Reid reportedly claimed to have bought them for £1,050 in Amsterdam.
Reid, a 28-year-old Londoner, faces life in prison after his arrest on December 22 following an alleged attempt to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami.
The former petty thief was allegedly spotted attempting to light his laces by an attendant.
She called for help and started a struggle which ended in Reid being restrained by other passengers and sedated by a doctor on the plane.
He is facing a series of charges and is alleged by prosecutors to have been trained at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan.
Reid reportedly told the FBI he had acted alone and used a recipe from the internet to make explosives called triacetone triperoxide (TATP) after buying the ingredients from a Czech or Slovak man in Amsterdam.
TATP, which is made of readily available chemicals, is the explosive often used by Palestinian group Hamas in its suicide attacks on Israelis.
I can still picture this lame-o flicking his Bic trying to light some C-3.
Uhhh... that would be "C-4," and that's not what was packed in the shoes. C-4 requires a charge, not a flame, to make it explosive. It's my understanding that C-4 is used by some GIs to cook over, as it burns like those wax fireplace logs you buy at the drug store.
The shoes contained a chemical explosive with "nitro" in the name if I'm not mistaken.
I'm picturing him smoking (what he thought to be) his last cigarette at the terminal, dropping it to the floor, stepping on it, ...
Someone call Amnesty International and the ACLU!!!
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