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

Dec. 26, 2001 -- 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.

"We are unaware of any evidence to support a link between the offense charged and any terrorist organization or individual," Birckhead said in the statement. "We urge the public to maintain open minds as the criminal justice system proceeds, beginning with the detention probable cause hearing scheduled for Friday."

FBI officials said Reid had a functional bomb tucked in his high-top sneakers aboard American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami on Saturday. The plane was rerouted to Boston's Logan International Airport.

Reid allegedly tried to light a fuse protruding from one of his sneakers with a match, but other passengers and flight attendants smelled the sulphur and grabbed him before the bomb could be ignited. He was strapped into his seat with belts and two doctors sedated him with drugs from an airplane medical kit.

Officials at Logan Airport described the substance as consistent with the military plastic explosive C-4, a clay-like substance that is easy to mold and shape. C-4 was used in the attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors.

Didn't Act Alone

The leader of the London mosque where Reid worshipped says the ex-convict could not have been working alone, and he believes the man's mission was a trial run to determine whether the devices could be used in new terror attacks. Abdul Haqq Baker said he did not know if Reid and Moussaoui knew one another, but he said he does not believe Reid could have come up with the shoe-bombing scheme on his own.

"I really personally believe he was a tester to see how far he would get and then act thereafter," Baker said. "I honestly believe that. The center believes that. He's not capable of sitting, conspiring to get these explosives and then take it forward. I think that can be seen in the way he tried to light the bomb, how he attended the airport without any luggage whatsoever. All of these things clearly indicate to us there's someone behind him."

FBI officials reportedly agree. An anonymous Massachusetts state official told the Boston Globe that FBI investigators believe the explosives found in Reid's black suede sneakers and the detonation device were too sophisticated for him to have put together on his own. The official told the newspaper that a preliminary examination of Reid's athletic shoes revealed four to five ounces of explosive packed into each one.

Red Flag Among Mosque Leaders

Baker, an outspoken critic of violence carried out in the name of Islam, said that his mosque has been the focus of recruiting efforts by Muslim fundamentalist extremists because it is located in one of London's poorest neighborhoods.

According to a report in The Times of London, Abu Qatada, who is known as Osama bin Laden's representative in Europe, recruited at the mosque, and another man who worshipped there, Shahid Butt, was detained in Yemen on charges that he and others plotted to carry out an attack on the British consulate and a church.

Baker said Reid became increasingly militant while he was at the Brixton mosque and eventually stopped attending services. Mosque leaders, he said, became concerned six months ago when they received a call from Reid's distressed mother, who revealed that she had lost contact with him and had heard he was in Pakistan.

"When we heard he was in Pakistan, some thought he was practicing and learning Arabic," Baker said. "Some of us became concerned, [thinking] 'Oh, no.What's he doing in Pakistan?'"

Despite their concerns, Brixton mosque leaders, who say they are in frequent contact with the Anti-Terrorist unit of Britain's Scotland yard, said they did not share their specific information about Reid with law enforcement.

Who Is Reid?

The FBI is conducting an international probe to reconstruct Reid's life. French intelligence said Reid is from Sri Lanka and also uses the name Tariq Raja. However, the Sri Lanka Embassy in Washington said he was not a Sri Lankan citizen, and the FBI says it believes he is a British citizen, that Reid is his real name, and that he sometimes uses Raja as an alias.

Scotland Yard also believes the suspect to be a British national, and according to reports in the British media his father is a Jamaican and his mother a British citizen.

Reid tried to take the same flight a day earlier — Friday — but was stopped at the airport because he raised a red flag in the profiling system: he had a one-way ticket, paid for in cash, no checked luggage, and carried a small carry-on bag.

He raised further suspicions when the airline ran a passport check. It was issued Dec. 7 at the British Embassy in Brussels, and appeared to be counterfeit. French police questioned him extensively and eventually approved him to travel, but he missed the flight.

Reid spent the night in an airport hotel, and then tried to board a flight the next day. He again raised red flags, and was scrutinized, but with assurances from French police from the day before, he was allowed to board.

ABCNEWS' Richard Gizbert in London, Pierre Thomas and Barbara Pinto in Washington, Ron Claiborn in Boston, and Lisa Stark and David Wright contributed to this report.