No terror ties to suspect

Published 9:00 pm Monday, December 24, 2001

Associated Press

BOSTON — Explosive devices that a man allegedly smuggled aboard an airliner in his sneakers would have created a "major disaster" if detonated, the FBI said Monday. The suspect showed little emotion at his first court appearance, and a jail spokesman said he was being "very compliant."

The man, identified by authorities as Richard C. Reid, was ordered held in federal custody Monday pending a bail hearing Friday. Reid has used at least two other names and his true identity remained unclear.

Authorities said they had no evidence to link him to Osama bin Laden’s terror network.

The scraggly haired suspect appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith Dein on Monday, sitting alone and dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and prison-issued plastic sandals. When asked if he understood the charge — intimidation or assault of a flight crew — he answered quietly: "Yeah."

Reid, 28, asked for a court-appointed attorney. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 20 years in prison. The FBI said more charges are likely.

During an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Saturday, two flight attendants and at least a half-dozen passengers grabbed Reid and used belts to strap him into his seat after he allegedly tried to touch a lit match to a fuse protruding from one of his shoes. The Boeing 767 airliner, carrying 183 passengers and 14 crew members, was escorted to Boston by two fighter jets.

Investigators would not identify the type of explosive material they said was found in devices in Reid’s sneakers, but said preliminary FBI tests determined the devices were functional.

"It would have resulted in significant damage and we did avert a major disaster," said Charles Prouty, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office.

Officials at Logan Airport had described the substance as consistent with the military plastic explosive C-4. But a source familiar with the preliminary tests who spoke Monday on condition he not be named said the substance could have been a plastic explosive other than C-4, which was used in the deadly October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

Reid will undergo a routine psychiatric evaluation, said jail spokesman Michael Seele in Plymouth.

"He’s been very compliant," Seele said. "He’s been very cooperative."

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence committee who has been receiving regular briefings, said the FBI still has to determine whether the suspect was acting alone, where he obtained the explosives and their source.

"He certainly didn’t get them at the corner grocery store," Shelby said.

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