Malaysia Airlines MH370: British Bomber Tells of Bomb Plot against Malaysian Jet
A British bomber, Saajid Badat, was sentenced to a 13-year jail time as a co-conspirator in a December 2001 plot to bomb U.S. airlines.
On Tuesday, he faced another trial as he testified for Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and al-Qa'ida's spokesman, as having a major participation during the Sept 11 attack.
In the course of the trial, Mr Badat alluded to bomb plot against a Malaysian jet planned as early as 2001, The Star Online Malaysia reports.
He told court that he was given two shoe bombs during his task to bomb the U.S. airlines. While his partner, Briton Richard Reid, attempted to detonate his bomb aboard a plane from Paris to Miami, Mr Badat said he changed his mind and headed home. But he kept the shoe bombs with him. He said he changed his mind about bombing the U.S. plane because he kept thinking about his parents telling him that they would not want a terrorist for a son.
Mr Badat recalled that he travelled from Afghanistan to Pakistan in December 2001 with Mr Reid, some Malaysians and a Mauritanian family.
The Malaysians were "their own group of four to five individuals including a pilot."
"I gave one of my shoes to the Malaysians. I think it was to access the cockpit," Mr Badat said during the trial.
He said that from the look of it, the Malaysians were "ready to perform an act." However, one of the Malaysians raised the possibility that the Malaysian jet's cockpit door might be locked.
"So I said, 'How about I give you one of my bombs to open a cockpit door?'" Badat told the court.
He left his bomb with the Malaysians, but he had not known of their plans from there.
Mr Badat made mention that a self professed 9/11 bomber, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now jailed at Guantanamo Bay, also spoke of a bomb plot about the Malaysians.
To date, officials investigating the missing Malaysia flight MH370 had not ruled terrorism out of the equation.
If indeed bombers were responsible for the missing Malaysia flight MH370, then passengers are facing chilling fate.
Mr Badat appeared in his trial cold-heartedly. He even took bomb plots as something to laugh at.
He shared that Mr Mohammed had a list of the world's tallest buildings as bomb targets. He had crossed the Twin Towers after the 9/11 attack as "a joke to make us laugh."
The prosecutor asked Mr Badat if 3,000 plus Americans dead was something humorous to Mr Badat.
"Unfortunately, yes," Mr Badat told court sheepishly.
Mr Badat also shared that bombers like him, during training, name each target after presidents and prime ministers in the likes of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and former Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
He said poison trainer would call target animals as "This is Clinton! This is Bush! This is Sharon!"
Mr Badat shared that for bombers like him, violent acts were obligation "just like prayer, fasting or doing charity."
He even added that he admired the 9/11 hijackers.
"When you're in that mentality ... you have envy for them. I'm thinking, 'Yes, I wish that was me. I could have that feeling it's my time now."