LONDON, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- British terror suspect Saajid Badat pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to blow up an aircraft.
Badat, 25, is alleged to have conspired with Richard Reid, the British shoebomber currently in a U.S. prison, and a Belgian terrorist to detonate a shoebomb on a plane bound for the United States.
He was arrested at his Gloucester home in November 2003 after an operation by police and MI5.
Badat had received training in Afghanistan and Pakistan and had been given an explosive device designed to evade airport security and to destroy an aircraft in flight, prosecutor Richard Horwell told a London court.
The prosecution accepted Badat had eventually withdrawn from the conspiracy.
He had booked a flight from Manchester to Amsterdam in preparation for a flight to the United States on which the device was to be detonated, Horwell said. However, he never took the flight.
The explosive device found at his home had been separated from the detonator, and he had also sent an e-mail in December 2001 indicating his withdrawal, the court heard.
Badat is due to be sentenced on March 18.
