Saajid Muhammad Badat (born 28 March 1979) is a British
terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...
who was sentenced to a 13-year prison term for planning to blow up an aircraft with a bomb hidden in his shoe.
Badat did not go through with the plot. His co-conspirator
Richard Reid
Richard Colvin Reid (born 12 August 1973), also known as the "Shoe Bomber", is a British terrorist who perpetrated the failed shoe bombing attempt against a transatlantic flight in 2001. Born to a father who was a career criminal, Reid convert ...
attempted unsuccessfully to set off his bomb and is now serving a life sentence without parole in the United States.
Radicalisation
Badat began his education at
The Crypt School
The Crypt School is a grammar school with academy status for boys and girls located in the city of Gloucester. Founded in the 16th century, it was originally an all-boys school, but it made its sixth form co-educational in the 1980s and moved ...
in Gloucester. After this, Badat began studying at an Islamic college in
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
; from 1999 he attended a
madrassa
Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , ), sometimes romanized as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary education or higher learning. ...
in Pakistan. Investigators believe he became radicalised there under the influence of
Al-Qaeda
, image = Flag of Jihad.svg
, caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
, founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden
, leaders = {{Plainlist,
* Osama bin Lad ...
sympathisers. It is believed he trained in Pakistan and possibly in neighbouring
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
. There he reportedly met
Richard Reid
Richard Colvin Reid (born 12 August 1973), also known as the "Shoe Bomber", is a British terrorist who perpetrated the failed shoe bombing attempt against a transatlantic flight in 2001. Born to a father who was a career criminal, Reid convert ...
, another British citizen, and the Al-Qaeda military commander
Mohammed Atef
Mohammed Atef (; born Sobhi Abd Al Aziz Mohamed El Gohary Abu Sitta, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri and al-Khabir; 1944 – November 2001) was an Egyptian militant and prominent military chief of al-Qaeda, and a deputy of Osama bin Laden, althou ...
. Badat returned to the UK in early 2001, but remained in email contact via "Bobu", his handler (alleged to be Tunisian footballer
Nizar Trabelsi).
After his return, Badat, like Reid, obtained duplicate passports from British consulates (court documents claim Badat was in the British embassy in
Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
doing so on 12 September 2001, having watched the
attacks of the previous day on television). Both Reid and Badat returned to Pakistan in November 2001, and reportedly travelled overland to Afghanistan. They both were given "shoe bombs", casual footwear adapted to be covertly smuggled onto aircraft before being used to destroy them. Later forensic analysis of the bombs showed that they both contained the same
plastic explosive
Plastic explosive is a soft and hand-moldable solid form of explosive material. Within the field of explosives engineering, plastic explosives are also known as putty explosives
or blastics.
Plastic explosives are especially suited for explos ...
and that the respective lengths of detonator cord had come from the same batch (the cut mark on Badat's cord matches exactly that on Reid's). The pair returned separately to the UK in early December 2001.
On their return, both maintained contact with their handler(s) in Pakistan, using a system of telephone cards and email accounts. Soon after this, Badat emailed his handler, indicating he was unsure if he would proceed with the scheme. But, he booked a flight from
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
to
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
, in preparation for taking a US-bound flight from there. Reid did likewise, booking a flight to
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
and thence to
Miami
Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
. On 22 December 2001 Reid boarded his flight. Badat did not, having emailed his handler, "You will have to tell Van Damme that he could be on his own". He later testified that he was talked out of the bombing by his father, who told him, on his return from Afghanistan, that "I've heard about sleepers. If I find out you are one of those sleepers I will kill you."
Aftermath
Following the failure of Reid's mission and his arrest and conviction, Badat remained silent and returned to his Islamic studies in
Blackburn
Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the River Ribble, Ribble Valley, east of Preston ...
. He appears to have cut ties with his handler in Pakistan, but kept the shoe bomb components at his home on St. James Street in Gloucester
(the detonator under his bed, the explosive in a hallway cupboard). Acting on secret intelligence, police searched the home in November 2003. They found the concealed bomb parts (they had evacuated more than 100 families from houses in the surrounding area) and arrested Saajid Badat.
[ After the families were allowed to return, his father Muhammad Badat reportedly spent several days visiting each home in the neighbourhood to apologise for his son.
]
Sentencing and imprisonment
On 28 February 2005 at the Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The s ...
in London, Badat pleaded guilty to involvement in a conspiracy to destroy a US-bound aircraft. On 22 April Badat was sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment. Delivering the sentence the judge, Mr Justice Fulford, said Badat's withdrawal from the plot justified a more lenient sentence, saying, "Turning away from crime in circumstances such as these constitutes a powerful mitigating factor
In criminal law, a mitigating factor, also known as an extenuating circumstance, is any information or evidence presented to the court regarding the defendant or the circumstances of the crime that might result in reduced charges or a lesser sente ...
". Had Badat not withdrawn, the judge said, he would have received a life sentence
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life imprisonment are c ...
.
During his incarceration, Badat assisted British and US authorities with information on other alleged terrorists. Some of this information was used in the US prosecution of Adis Medunjanin, a suspect in a 2009 plot to attack the New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...
. Because of this co-operation, Badat's sentence was cut from 13 years to 11, and an order put in place banning reporting of this deal to police and the media due to concern for Badats' safety until he was due to give evidence in public. In 2012 the British government revealed that Badat had been released from prison in March 2010. Theresa May
Theresa Mary May, Baroness May of Maidenhead (; ; born 1 October 1956), is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served as Home Secretar ...
was questioned by Labour MP Keith Vaz
Nigel Keith Anthony Standish Vaz (born 26 November 1956) is a British politician who served as the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Leicester East for 32 years, from 1987 Unit ...
about the deal which included the use of taxpayer money to rehouse Badat and provide an office space with phone and internet service. May defended the agreement citing that "Crown Protection Services have said that they considered very carefully the merits of entering into this agreement with a convicted terrorist, that they believed the administration of justice would actually benefit from the agreement they entered into" and that "co-operation is obviously a long-standing feature of our criminal justice system".
Shoe bomb testimony
Saajid Badat also gave evidence (via video-link from his secret hiding place in the UK) in March 2014 at the trial in New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith
Sulaiman Jassem Sulaiman Ali Abu Ghaith (; born 14 December 1965) is a Kuwaiti regarded as one of al-Qaeda's spokesmen.
He is marriage in Islam, married to one of Osama bin Laden's daughters. In 2013, Gaith was arrested in Jordan and extradite ...
(Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...
's son-in-law), during which he testified that instructions were given to him during his time in Afghanistan (2001) to give shoe bombs to a group of four to five Malaysian terrorists, one of them the pilot. Badat gave them one of his own shoe bombs. Badat and the Malaysian terrorists discussed the possibility that the cockpit door in the airliner might be locked: "So I said: 'How about I give you one of my bombs to open the cockpit door?'"
One possible target of the Malaysian terrorist plot (masterminded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (sometimes also spelled Shaykh; also known by at least 50 pseudonyms; born 14 April 1965), often known by his initials KSM, is a terrorist, and the former head of propaganda for the pan-Islamist militant group al-Qaeda. He ...
) would be the Petronas Towers
The Petronas Towers (), also known as the Petronas Twin Towers and colloquially the KLCC Twin Towers, are an interlinked pair of 88-storey supertall skyscrapers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, standing at . From 1996 to 2004, they were the tall ...
in Kuala Lumpur, the world's tallest buildings from 1998 until 2004. These potential Malaysian Islamists' connections with Badat and Al-Qaeda
, image = Flag of Jihad.svg
, caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
, founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden
, leaders = {{Plainlist,
* Osama bin Lad ...
were uncovered just a few days after the MH370 disappearance. The link was discussed by British media in 2014.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Badat, Saajid
1979 births
English people of Indian descent
21st-century British criminals
Malawian emigrants to the United Kingdom
Living people
People from Gloucester
English Muslims
People imprisoned on terrorism charges
Malawian Muslims
English prisoners and detainees
Prisoners and detainees of England and Wales
Malawian people of Indian descent
Malawian expatriates in Pakistan
Individuals designated as terrorists by the United States government