LONDON – A British man arrested last week in southwestern England was charged Wednesday with conspiring with convicted “shoe-bomber” Richard Reid in an explosives plot, police said.
Sajid Badat was charged with three offenses, including that between Sept. 1, 2001, and Nov. 28, 2003, he “unlawfully and maliciously conspired with Richard Reid and others unknown” to cause an explosion “likely to endanger life or cause serious injury” in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, London’s Metropolitan Police said.
Badat, 24, also was charged with two counts of possessing or controlling an explosive substance.
He was arrested Nov. 27 after police found explosive material at his home in Gloucester.
Shortly after the arrest, Home Secretary David Blunkett said the security services and police believed the suspect had “connections with the network of al-Qaida groups.”
Ibrahim Master, chairman of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said last week that the suspect had been a student at the College of Islamic Knowledge and Guidance in Blackburn, northern England.
Badat was one of more than a dozen people arrested and questioned under anti-terrorism laws in the past week.
Reid was sentenced to life in prison for a Dec. 22, 2001, bombing attempt aboard a Paris-to-Miami American Airlines flight. When he pleaded guilty in October 2002, Reid said he was a member of al-Qaida, pledged his support to Osama bin Laden, and declared himself an enemy of the United States.
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