Paris tries alleged aides to shoebomber Reid

PARIS - Three men accused of aiding jailed "shoebomber" Richard Reid, who narrowly failed to destroy a US airliner over the Atlantic four years ago, has gone on trial for terrorist conspiracy in a top Paris court.

Presiding judge Jacqueline Rebeyrotte said the trio were charged with plotting terrorist acts between 2001 and 2002 and of assisting Reid, who attempted to down a Miami-bound airliner from Paris with a bomb hidden inside one of his shoes.

According to French intelligence, Ghulam Rama, a Pakistani with joint British nationality, used trips to Britain, New York, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia between 2001 and 2002 as cover while he organised terrorist attacks, she said.

Rama is charged along with Frenchmen Hakim Mokhfi and Hassan El Cheguer. All three face up to 10 years in jail if convicted, but lawyers said their clients were innocent.

"Mr Rama has always said that he has never had any contact with Richard Reid," attorney Didier Machetto said before the trial began. "There is no evidence that can support the theory that he was planning terrorist acts." Fellow passengers overpowered Reid as he tried to detonate a custom-made device in his shoes on an American Airlines flight in December 2001. The British national, aged 31, was jailed for life by a US court in January 2003.

A French probe on Reid's activities in France revealed he had used a Paris cyber cafe to contact Pakistan, a trail that led them to Rama, president of the Straight Path Muslim charity.

Rama allegedly told police he saw Mokhfi and Cheguer with Reid. But his lawyer Machetto said Rama, who spoke to the court in English via an interpreter, was sick and confused when police first asked him if he recognised a photograph of Reid.

The French pair deny ever meeting the would-be shoebomber.

According to a French intelligence report read out by Rebeyrotte, Rama met several people thought to be close to al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and other known Islamic extremists during trips to his native Pakistan. Rama dismissed the reports.

"I have never met anybody. Straight Path -- we're the straight people, you know? We are not connected directly or indirectly with any terrorist organisation. This is beyond my comprehension," Rama said.

Future hearings, Rebeyrotte said, would focus on a flurry of phone calls between the accused following Rama's release by police after his initial arrest in April 2002.

Rama was re-arrested in June of that year along with Cheguer and Mokhfi. All three have been in custody ever since.

Rama is accused of recruiting Mokhfi and Cheguer and organising their stay in a training camp in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir run by a group reputedly close to al Qaeda. Reid made several trips to al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan where he met Zacarias Moussaoui, 36, a Frenchman who last month pleaded guilty to six conspiracy charges in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Also last month, a British man who conspired with Reid to blow up another airliner over the Atlantic was jailed for 13 years by a London court after admitting his guilt.

- REUTERS