NEW YORK (AP) A British man who quit a 2001 shoe-bomb plot and became a valuable witness at terrorism trials told a judge Friday that he does not want to testify in the United States because he'll be arrested on terrorism charges filed in Boston.
Saajid Badat spoke to U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest via a video link from the United Kingdom several days after the judge told lawyers she thought Badat might surprise them and agree to testify in the United States if she asked him a series of direct questions.
His answers, though, mirrored what he said when his recorded testimony was shown in 2012 at a Brooklyn terrorism trial and again last month when he appeared through a live video feed from London at the trial of Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, who was al-Qaida's spokesman after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Forrest is deciding whether and, if so, how Badat might be permitted to testify at the April 14 terrorism trial of Mustafa Kamel Mustafa.
Mustafa has pleaded not guilty to charges he conspired to support al-Qaida. The U.S. government says he conspired with Seattle men in 1999 to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, and helped abduct two American tourists and 14 others in Yemen in 1998.