LONDON (AFP) - A British Muslim pleaded guilty to conspiring with jailed "shoe bomber" Richard Reid to try and blow up airliners, an admission police hailed as a major breakthrough in anti-terrorism efforts.
Intelligence services believe Saajid Badat, 25, who was arrested in Britain in late 2003, had volunteered to mimic Reid's failed suicide bomb attack by igniting a shoe packed with explosives during a commercial flight.
Fellow Briton Reid, a self-professed follower of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), was jailed for life by a US court in early 2003 for trying to blow up a Paris to Miami flight in 2001 using an explosive device hidden in his shoe.
At the start of his trial at London's Central Criminal Court on Monday morning, Badat reversed an earlier innocent plea and admitted to conspiring between January 1, 1999, and November 28, 2003, to place an explosive device on an aircraft.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050228/ts_afp/britainattacksplane_050228122402
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