NYC trial: Osama bin Laden wanted 9/11 follow-up
Apr 23, 2012, 11:19 PM
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) – A British man who trained to be a shoe bomber a decade ago says Osama bin Laden told him after Sept. 11 that he hoped a follow-up terrorism attack would collapse the American economy.
The videotaped testimony played Monday came from Saajid Badat, who was convicted in a 2001 plot to down an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes. Badat was testifying at the federal trial of a man accused in a 2009 plot to attack New York’s subways with suicide bombs.
Badat said he was supposed to carry out a simultaneous bombing with failed shoe-bomber Richard Reid.
Badat says bin Laden told him the shoe plot could ruin the aviation industry. He says the al-Qaida founder said the American economy was like a chain and that breaking one link could down the whole economy.
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