BOSTON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- An Islamic convert who allegedly tried to set off shoe bombs aboard a trans-Atlantic American Airlines flight was under a suicide watch Wednesday as authorities investigated his possible links to terror groups.
Richard Colvin Reid, 28, was arrested when Flight 63 with 197 people on board bound from Paris to Miami was diverted to Boston Saturday after crew and passengers subdued him as he attempted to light a fuse to what officials said was explosives packed into his sneakers.
Reid was being held at a secure federal facility near Boston pending a bail hearing Friday. Officials said he was to undergo a psychological examination this week.
Questions about his possible past connections to terrorist organizations, meanwhile, continued to vex FBI investigators. Declining to discuss specifics, investigators would only say the matter was "under investigation."
The Times of London reported Wednesday Reid might have worshiped at the same London mosque as Zacarias Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent indicted recently in Washington as the "20th suspect" in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Moussaoui was arrested Aug. 17 in Minnesota after his desire to learn how to fly a jetliner, but not take off or land, aroused suspicions.
The newspaper reported mosque leader Abdul Haqq Baker said Muslim extremists often tried to recruit young worshipers at the mosque. Baker described Reid as "an amiable, happy-go-lucky individual" who showed up at the mosque several years ago. Reid was also described as a petty criminal who apparently converted to Islam while in prison, using the name Abdel Rahim.
Baker said he doubted Reid had the capacity to carry out a shoe-bomb attack with sophisticated explosives on his own, and that he must have had help.
"No way could he do this on his own," Baker said, adding he believed others were using him to test a new way to carry out terror attacks.
"If he had succeeded (in blowing up Flight 63), they would know this is a mechanism that works," Baker told the Times. "If the plane had exploded, there would have been very little trace of how that happened."
There was no evidence that Reid ever met with Moussaoui or Abu Qatada, a known Osama bin Laden associate who also worshiped there, the Times said.
Reid may have left the London wing of an Islamic movement known as Tabliq because it was "not radical enough," according to the French newspaper La Provence. Tabliq is generally known as an Islamic religious study group, although some of its members have reportedly trained with bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.
Reid carried a legal British passport when arrested. He is the son of an English mother and Jamaican father, according to the Times.
Reid made an initial appearance on Monday in federal court in Boston and was ordered held without bail pending Friday's hearing.
He boarded Flight 63 in Paris on Saturday after missing a Friday flight because authorities were suspicious about the fact he had bought a one-way ticket and had no check-in luggage. They allowed him to board on Saturday because there was no evidence of any police record and the passport was in order.
About halfway into the flight over the Atlantic, a flight attendant saw him attempt to light a match to what appeared to be a fuse on his sneaker. But with the help of several passengers, the attendant was able to subdue him until the plane landed safely in Boston. He was initially charged with assaulting a flight crew, but other charges were possible.
Since his arrest, authorities said they determined he had "functional improvised explosive devices" packed in hollowed-out sections in both sneakers, enough to have brought down the Boeing 767.
"It is a functional device, it could have exploded as configured," FBI special agent Charles Prouty said at a Monday Boston news conference. "It would have resulted in significant damage and we did avert a major disaster."
The Federal Aviation Administration has since ordered airports to check the footwear of travelers. Some passengers have been required to take off their shoes to be examined by checkpoint X-ray machines.
