British ‘shoebomber’ accomplice jailed for 13 years

LONDON - A British man who admitted to conspiring with "shoebomber" Richard Reid to blow up airliners over the Atlantic - but had a change of heart before boarding his flight -  has been jailed for 13 years.

Saajid Badat, 25, entered a surprise guilty plea in February, admitting he had conspired with Reid to blow up planes in simultaneous attacks.

Reid failed in his bid to blow up an American Airlines plane flying from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22, 2001 after passengers and crew overpowered him as he tried to ignite explosives in his shoe.

Badat confessed to an identical plan. He bought a ticket to fly from Manchester, in northern England, to Amsterdam on Dec. 17, 2001 and then on to the United States.

But he did not take the flight, emailing his family on Dec. 14 that he had changed his mind.

Judge Adrian Fulford gave him a 13-year sentence, saying he was being lenient because Badat had had "a genuine change of heart," abandoning plans for the attack and pleading guilty.

Defence lawyer Michael Mansfield said: "Badat had effectively agreed to become a courier of death. But he came to recognize that this was not the way forward."

London's Old Bailey court heard at the hearing in February that Badat had been given an explosive device in Afghanistan that had a detonating cord that matched Reid's.

Badat, of Gloucester, southwest England, was arrested in November 2003. At his home, police found a bomb which he had made safe by separating the detonator and fuse from the plastic explosive, which had been designed to evade airport security.

"It is clear that the plan of Reid and Badat was to bring down passenger aircraft at similar times toward the end of December 2001," said prosecutor Richard Horwell.

Reid was sentenced to life imprisonment by a US court in January 2003.

- REUTERS