Shoe-Bomb Suspect Had Contact with '20th Hijacker'

Dec. 26 -- The alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks and the man accused of trying to detonate explosives in his shoes aboard a trans-Atlantic flight knew each other and trained in the same al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, European law enforcement officials told ABCNEWS.

Between 1996 and 1998, shoe-bomb suspect Richard Reid was a frequent visitor to a mosque in Brixton, South London — the same one frequented around the same time as the accused hijack conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, the first person charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Reid converted to Islam while in prison and was sent to the Brixton mosque for rehabilitation. ABCNEWS has learned that European law enforcement officials have evidence of contact between Reid and Moussaoui in late 2000 and that the two men spent months training together in explosives and demolition at the same al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.

A senior Pentagon official told ABCNEWS that U.S. forces have shown pictures of Reid to al-Qaeda prisoners in Afghanistan and some of them said they recognized the 28-year-old British man as having trained at camps there. However, the official said that it is not yet clear how credible the accounts are.

Meeting With Lawyers

Prosecutors have accused Reid of interfering with a flight crew through assault and intimidation, a charge that carries a term of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. He is being held without bail at the Plymouth County Correctional Center until his bail hearing scheduled for Friday. He is under a suicide watch, described as routine in such cases, and is scheduled to undergo psychiatric evaluation before his next court appearance.

Two attorneys, Owen Walker and Tamara Birckhead, have been appointed to represent him. They met with Reid today, and in a statement released afterwards, they said they were unaware of any alleged links between their client and terrorist groups.