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This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/561
Aborted terrorist plot spawns Jihad through Da'wa as UK born terrorist 'scholar' goes to prison where he can teach about Islam
April 26, 2005
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MIM:Saajid Badat: Convicted British born shoebomber wannabe who 'got cold feet' could be out of jail in 8 years:
"I have a sincere desire to sell my soul to Allah in return for paradise," he said in a letter prosecutors said was found along with explosives at his home.
MIM: According to the print version of a Miami Herald article, the judge praised Badat for having made the decision not to become a 'mass murderer and to become a Muslim scholar instead'. The folly in the sentencing judges expressed hope that' future terrorists would be deterred from their acts knowing they would get leniency from the courts' shows that Londinistan is living up to it's name.
Mass murderer wannabes like Badat, who ended up 'becoming Muslim scholars instead', will continue waging 'Jihad through Da'wa', by recruiting fellow inmates to Islam in prison, who, upon their release, might themselves decide to take up where Badat left off.
Which begs the question as to if a judge who considered it commendable that an Afghan trained Muslim terrorist,who made a choice between becoming a 'mass murderer or Muslim scholar', didn't take into account the fact that the defendants own fear of death might have been the decisive factor for his sudden 'change of heart and career' and had nothing to do with remorse. One wonders if the judges praise was an expression of support for Islamist affirmative action or an indictment of his own appalling lack of judgement.
http://khon.com/khon/display.cfm?storyID=4479§ionID=1152
Shoe bomber's co-conspirator sentenced
"A London judge sentenced a would-be airplane bomber to 13 years in prison. Saajid Badat, 25, pled guilty to conspiring with shoe-bomber Richard Reid in late 2001 to bring down two trans-Atlantic flights.
Badat changed his mind and returned to Britain to become a Muslim scholar.
Badat's father, speaking through an attorney, said his son's guilty plea was an act of conscience.
Shoe bomber Reid pled guilty in the U.S. and is serving life in prison."
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MIM: Dhimmitude in the UK reached new depths when the sentencing judge in a shoe bomber case, praised British born dirty bomber wannabe Sajid Badat by saying 'it can take considerable courage to plead guilty to offenses of this kind'. It was a desire to save his own skin and not courage which had motivated him to back out of the plot and plead guilty to the charges. Had Badat been convicted, as he certainly would have been, he would have gone to jail for 50 years.
The judge also lauded Badat's 'change of heart' as if it had been a form of humanitarian concern, instead of the result of the terrorist's realization that he would also be killed along with the airline passengers he was planning to blow up. The judge who appears to be apologetic for sentencing Badat expressed the absurd hope that a lenient sentence would show others considering terrorism that 'a decision to turn away from violence would benefit them in court..." The judges ignorance terrorist pyschology is only matched by a similiar deficiency regarding Islam. Any terrorist who is considering killing themselves for Jihad does not recognise the court of Britain as having an jurisdiction over Muslims, who are only answerable to Allah, so any 'benefits in court' would not be reason for them to renounce martyrdom aspirations. Badat's supposed remorse is most likely attributable to his having been caught and tried, rather then to any pangs of conscience at his decision to carry out attacks against those he considers 'infidels'.
"...Badat pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge two months ago. Had he been convicted at trial, the judge said he would have recommended a sentence of at least 50 years.
But Badat's apparent remorse was a factor in the more lenient sentence, Fulford said.
Fulford said he hoped the sentence would send a message to others considering terrorism that a decision to turn away from violence would benefit them in court..."
British convicts typically are eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of their sentence, so Badat could be released in a little more than eight years..."http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/3149040
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"...Badat had confessed immediately, telling officers as they drove to the police station: "I was asked to do a shoe-bombing like Richard Reid."
He told the police about a green suitcase in his bedroom which contained a fuse and detonator and another suitcase which contained explosives inside a sock.
He reportedly told officers he did not know how to dispose of the items, and added: "An Arab gave me these things in Afghanistan."
Defense lawyer Michael Mansfield said the tale of how a "conscientious, hardworking student" came to consider mass murder "is a story of our times."
Badat's Muslim faith "in one sense took him to the brink, the very brink of disaster, and at the same time it was same faith that pulled him back," Mansfield said.
Mansfield said Badat felt deep remorse and wanted to urge anyone else considering terrorist acts to "have the courage to turn back and save lives..."
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Conspirator of shoe bomber pleads guilty, gets 13 years
By JILL LAWLESS
The Associated Press
LONDON — A British judge sentenced a Muslim scholar to 13 years in prison yesterday after he admitted conspiring with shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a trans-Atlantic jetliner in 2001.
Judge Adrian Fulford said he believed that Saajid Badat backed out of an alleged plot with Reid, who was subdued by passengers when he attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoe aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22, 2001, with 197 people on board.
Prosecutors said Badat, 25, of Gloucester, England, conspired to detonate a bomb in a shoe on a different flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to the United States in a plan coordinated with Reid. But he had second thoughts and never bought a ticket.
The U.S. destination of that flight was not specified in court.
Badat pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge two months ago. Had he been convicted at trial without pleading guilty, the judge said yesterday he would have recommended a sentence of at least 50 years. But Badat's apparent remorse was a factor in the more lenient sentence, Fulford said.
"Turning away from crime in circumstances such as these constitutes a powerful mitigating factor," the judge said. "It can take considerable courage to plead guilty to offenses of this kind."
Fulford said Badat had been part of a plot to commit a "wicked and inhuman crime" that would have killed hundreds of people.
"Sitting in the civilized and muted surroundings of the Old Bailey (courthouse), it is easy to forget exactly what you planned," he told Badat.
But the judge said he believed Badat had a genuine change of heart. He said he balanced the need for strong deterrents in terrorism cases with Badat's evident remorse. Fulford said he hoped the sentence would send a message to others considering terrorism that a decision to reject violence would benefit them in court.
Badat's guilty plea in February was the first major conviction for a terrorist plot in Britain since the Sept. 11 attacks.
British convicts typically are eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of their sentence, so Badat could be released in a little more than eight years.
In letters to his parents written before the bomb plot and read in court yesterday, Badat said he was disillusioned with Britain.
"I have a sincere desire to sell my soul to Allah in return for paradise," he said in a letter prosecutors said was found along with explosives at his home.
According to prosecutors, Badat was trained in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. While in Afghanistan, he was given an explosive device designed to evade airport security and destroy an aircraft in flight.
Badat returned to Britain on Dec. 10, 2001, with the device. The detonating cords on Reid's device matched those on Badat's bomb, prosecutors said.
Prosecutor Richard Horwell said Badat booked a ticket to fly from Manchester, England, to Amsterdam in preparation for a trans-Atlantic flight to the United States that he planned to blow up.
"But he did not take that flight. We accept by then he had withdrawn from the conspiracy, which by then he had been party to for an appreciable period of time," Horwell said.
He said Badat sent an e-mail to co-conspirators on Dec. 14, 2001, indicating he might withdraw from the plot.
Horwell said Badat confessed as soon as he was apprehended in November 2003, telling officers as they drove to the police station: "I was asked to do a shoe-bombing like Richard Reid."
He told the police about a green suitcase in his bedroom in Gloucester which contained a fuse and detonator, and another suitcase containing plastic explosives inside a sock.
"An Arab gave me these things in Afghanistan," he reportedly told officers, adding he did not know how to dispose of the items.
Reid was arrested in Boston after trying to detonate his bomb aboard the Paris-Miami flight, which was diverted to Boston. He was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty.
In October, a grand jury in Boston charged Badat with attempted murder, trying to destroy an aircraft and other counts related to the alleged conspiracy. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft said then the United States had "a keen interest" in seeking Badat's eventual extradition to stand trial.
Britain's Crown Prosecution Office said convicts must serve their sentences here before being extradited for trial elsewhere. Any extradition cannot be for the same crime for which a person has already been convicted.
Also
Switzerland extradited to Spain yesterday the suspected leader of a Muslim cell that Spanish officials say planned to blow up Spain's High Court with a truck bomb. Moroccan-born Mohamed Achraf was flown from Zurich to Madrid, the Swiss federal office of justice in Bern said.
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Former grammar school boy gets 13 years for shoe bomb plot
http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=102929
OLD BAILY, April 26 (Online): A Muslim former grammar schoolboy who became radicalised by the slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia, and then planned to explode a shoe bomb aboard a passenger plane, was sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment.
Saajid Badat was told he would have faced a 50-year sentence, but Mr Justice Fulford gave him credit for pulling out of the plot, renouncing terrorism and pleading guilty.
Badat, 25, admitted to conspiring to explode the shoe bomb in mid-air aboard a plane bound for the US, says a report of The Guardian.
At his sentencing at the Old Bailey yesterday, new details emerged of the plot in which Badat and the failed shoe bomber Richard Reid were to have exploded their devices on planes simultaneously in December 2001, three months after the al-Qaida attacks on the US.
Reid was overpowered on December 22 2001 as he was spotted trying to light a cord coming from his shoe on a plane bound for Miami.
Badat is the first Briton convicted in this country of plotting mass murder since the September 11 attacks.
He spent two years in camps in Afghanistan, and after leaving to travel around Europe, he returned to Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks and was recruited for the plot by Abu Hafs.
Mr Justice Fulford said Badat had conspired to kill hundreds of people in a plot that would also have "shattered" the lives of thousands of their friends and loved ones, and caused huge economic damage and "widespread fear and panic".
Balanced against this was Badat's decision to drop out of the plot and his subsequent cooperation with the police. The judge said it was in the public interest that "if a would-be terrorist turns away from death and destruction before any lives are put at risk", the courts would pass a lower sentence.
Sentencing rules mean that Badat will receive a reduction of one-third on the term imposed on him for pleading guilty at the first reasonable opportunity. He could be considered for parole in just over five years' time.
But he has been indicted on seven counts of terrorism in the US for the same plot, though the Americans have yet to formally request his extradition.
The court heard that Badat left his Gloucester home at the age of 18. There had been tensions with his father.
Working in London as a kitchen porter and security guard, he began to be radicalised by accounts of the suffering of Muslims around the world, and particularly the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.
In 1998, he went to Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, where thousands of Muslims had been killed. "He saw for himself, heard for himself, what had happened to Muslim families," said his barrister, Michael Mansfield QC.
In January 1999, the 19-year-old Badat travelled to Afghanistan and attended camps for military training.
Mr Mansfield said Badat wanted to help "defend" Muslim communities against attacks, and compared him to those who had gone to fight fascism in the Spanish civil war in the 1930s.
By September 2001 he was in Europe and on September 12 that year he was in Amsterdam with Reid.
Both were being "handled" by Nizar Trabelsi, a former footballer now serving 10 years in a Belgian jail for plotting to bomb a Nato airbase.
Badat travelled back to Afghanistan, where he was recruited to the plot, becoming "a courier of death". According to Mr Mansfield, he faced "moral blackmail" to carry out the bombing. Badat was going through a turbulent time in Afghanistan. In a letter to his family he wrote: "I have a sincere desire to sell my soul to Allah in return for paradise."
Mr Mansfield said Badat's faith, which, according to most Islamic scholars, condemns violence, had led him to pull out of the mass murder plot. "It was faith that in one sense took him to the very brink of disaster, and at the same time it was the same faith that pulled him back."
By December 2001 he had returned to Britain and showed clear signs of renouncing violence.
In an email dated December 14 2001, which was recovered by police, Badat told his handler that he was ill, and wrote: "I will keep you informed, but you will have to tell Van Damme [Reid] he could be on his own."
Badat then resumed his studies, enrolling in an Islamic college in Blackburn. The crown said there was no sign of any further involvement in terrorism by him.
In November 2003, police raided Badat's Gloucester home and arrested him. He soon confessed.
The head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, said the case "demonstrates the reality of the threat we are facing. Badat had agreed to blow up a passenger aircraft from Europe to the United States and was prepared to kill himself and hundreds of innocent people."
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http://www.nwherald.com/MainSection/other/283136115148744.php
Shoe-bomber plot unfolds
LONDON (AP) – A British judge on Friday imposed a 13-year prison sentence on a man who admitted conspiring with shoe-bomber Richard Reid to blow up a U.S.-bound trans-Atlantic jet in 2001.
Prosecutors said that they believed British-born Saajid Badat, 25, might have backed out of an alleged plot with Reid, who was subdued by passengers when he attempted to detonate a bomb aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22, 2001.
"Turning away from crime in circumstances such as these constitutes a powerful mitigating factor," Judge Adrian Fulford said. "It can take considerable courage to plead guilty to offenses of this kind."
Badat's guilty plea in February was the first major conviction for a terrorist plot in Britain since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
British convicts typically are eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of their sentence, so Badat could be released in a little more than eight years.
Fulford said Badat had been part of a plot to commit a "wicked and inhuman crime" that would have killed hundreds of people.
"Sitting in the civilized and muted surroundings of the Old Bailey (courthouse), it is easy to forget exactly what you planned," Fulford said.
But the judge said he believed Badat had a genuine change of heart and balanced the need for strong deterrents in terrorism cases with Badat's evident remorse.
Fulford said he hoped the sentence would send a message to others considering terrorism that a decision to turn away from violence would benefit them in court.
Had Badat been convicted at trial without pleading guilty, the judge said he would have recommended a sentence of at least 50 years.
In letters to his parents read in court Friday, Badat said he was disillusioned with Britain.
"I have a sincere desire to sell my soul to Allah in return for paradise," he wrote in a letter prosecutors said was found along with explosives at his home.
Prosecutor Richard Horwell said Badat had confessed immediately, telling officers as they drove to the police station: "I was asked to do a shoe-bombing like Richard Reid."
He told the police about a green suitcase in his bedroom which contained a fuse and detonator and another suitcase which contained explosives inside a sock.
He reportedly told officers he did not know how to dispose of the items, and added: "An Arab gave me these things in Afghanistan."
Defense lawyer Michael Mansfield said the tale of how a "conscientious, hardworking student" came to consider mass murder "is a story of our times."
Badat's Muslim faith "in one sense took him to the brink, the very brink of disaster, and at the same time it was same faith that pulled him back," Mansfield said.
Mansfield said Badat felt deep remorse and wanted to urge anyone else considering terrorist acts to "have the courage to turn back and save lives."
Badat, of Gloucester, England, had been accused of conspiring with Reid, who was convicted in the United States, and with a Belgian man to make the explosive device. Reid was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to U.S. charges.
Horwell said before Badat's plea that he had booked a ticket to fly from Manchester, England, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, in preparation for a flight to the United States on which he planned to detonate his bomb.
"But he did not take that flight. We accept by then he had withdrawn from the conspiracy which by then he had been party to for an appreciable period of time," Horwell said.
He said Badat sent an e-mail on Dec. 14, 2001, indicating he might withdraw from the plot.
Horwell said Badat kept the device at his home in Gloucester but had separated the fuse and detonator from the plastic explosive.
Prosecutors had said Badat received training both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that while in Afghanistan he was given an explosive device designed to evade airport security and destroy an aircraft in flight.
Badat returned to Britain on Dec. 10, 2001, with the device in his possession. The detonating cords on Reid's device matched the cord on Badat's bomb, prosecutors said.
In October, a U.S. grand jury in Boston charged Badat with attempted murder, trying to destroy an aircraft and other counts related to the alleged conspiracy.
Police said Belgian telephone cards found on Reid were used by Badat to get in touch with Reid's terrorist contact Nizar Trabelsi, who is now in jail in Belgium.
Trabelsi, a Tunisian who played professional soccer for several German teams, was sentenced to the maximum 10 years in prison in 2003. He had admitted planning to drive a car bomb into the canteen of a Belgian air base where U.S. nuclear weapons are believed to be stored.
Acquaintances in Gloucester had described Badat as a quiet, studious young man who had given sermons at a local mosque. His parents reportedly emigrated from Malawi in the 1960s and settled in Gloucester.
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Britain's `shoe bomber' handed 13-year sentence
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/04/24/2003251775
THE GUARDIAN , London
Sunday, Apr 24, 2005,Page 6
A Muslim who became radicalized by the slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia, and then planned to explode a shoe bomb aboard a passenger plane, was on Friday sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment.
Saajid Badat was told he would have faced a 50-year sentence, but Justice Fulford gave him credit for pulling out of the plot, renouncing terrorism and pleading guilty.
Badat, 25, admitted to conspiring to explode the shoe bomb in mid-air aboard a plane bound for the US.
At his sentencing at the Old Bailey central criminal court in London Friday, new details emerged of the plot in which Badat and the failed shoe bomber Richard Reid were to have exploded their devices on planes simultaneously in December 2001, three months after the al-Qaeda attacks on the US.
Reid was overpowered on Dec. 22 2001 as he was spotted trying to light a cord coming from his shoe on a plane bound for Miami.
Badat is the first Briton convicted in this country of plotting mass murder since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
He spent two years in camps in Afghanistan, and after leaving to travel around Europe, he returned to Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks and was recruited for the plot by Abu Hafs.
Justice Fulford said Badat had conspired to kill hundreds of people in a plot that would also have "shattered" the lives of thousands of their friends and loved ones, and caused huge economic damage and "widespread fear and panic."
Balanced against this was Badat's decision to drop out of the plot and his subsequent cooperation with the police. The judge said it was in the public interest that "if a would-be terrorist turns away from death and destruction before any lives are put at risk," the courts would pass a lower sentence.
Sentencing rules mean that Badat will receive a reduction of one-third on the term imposed on him for pleading guilty at the first reasonable opportunity. He could be considered for parole in just over five years' time.
But he has been indicted on seven counts of terrorism in the US for the same plot, though the Americans have yet to formally request his extradition.
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/561