Intelligence services believe Saajid Badat, who today admitted plotting to blow up a plane, was in league with the now-notorious British shoebomber Richard Reid.

The specially designed explosive device given to Badat was identical to that used by Reid when he tried to bring down an aircraft flying from Paris to Miami in December 2001 with a quantity of plastic explosive and a detonator hidden in his trainer. He was stopped as he struck a match to light the fuse to the bomb.

A piece of detonating cord from Reid’s device matched that of Badat’s bomb, and prosecutor Richard Horwell told the Old Bailey the plan was for both to blow up a plane at similar times that month.

Badat never went through with his attempt, but Reid was jailed for life by a US district court in Boston two years ago after admitting attempting to bring down an American Airlines jetliner carrying 197 passengers and crew.

A pre-trial hearing in Badat’s case was told that a link between the 25-year-old and Reid by Belgian telephone cards would be a vital detail of the prosecution case. Cards found on Reid were said to have been used by Badat to get in touch with Reid’s terrorist contact Nizar Trabelsi, who is in jail in Belgium.

Reid was a petty crook from the back streets of south London who made an unlikely international terrorist. According to those who knew him it was his lack of direction and weakness of character which made him such easy prey for Islamic fundamentalist recruiters and set him on the path to attempted mass murder.

The future shoebomber grew up in the quiet suburb of Bromley, having been born to an English mother and Jamaican father, but quickly fell into a life of crime and was jailed for a string of muggings in the 1990s.

At Feltham Young Offenders’ Institution in south-west London he encountered Islam and after his release became actively involved with Brixton Mosque. His time there overlapped briefly with another worshipper who was becoming more and more radicalised - Zacarias Moussaoui, the man who would become infamous in the wake of the September 11 attacks as the alleged "20th hijacker".

According to the mosque’s chairman, Abdul Haqq Baker, vulnerable Reid soon fell under the spell of the extremists the mosque attracted, and started attending extra-curricular sessions. He began to call himself Abdel Rahim and went from wearing western clothes to the traditional Islamic thobe - a loose, long-sleeved, ankle-length garment. Soon he was also wearing an army-style khaki combat jacket over his robe. And he began to have arguments with other, less radical worshippers at the mosque, who told him that his developing hatred of the West was wrong.

Towards the end of 1998 Reid stopped worshipping at the mosque and went to work in an incense shop before going to Pakistan. From there he headed for al-Qaeda terror training camps in Afghanistan.

Several Taliban prisoners captured in Afghanistan later identified Reid’s tall long haired figure to the US authorities. He also embarked on a wide - and expensive - travel programme, in which he is thought to have visited seven countries including Egypt, Israel and Turkey.

After the attempted bombing he always claimed to have acted alone but there have been accusations that he had a support team in Paris and US reporter Daniel Pearl was murdered while investigating Reid’s links in Pakistan.

Reid’s state of mind was brought sharply into question by his behaviour when he admitted his guilt in a Boston court last October. As he was accused of trying to murder 197 passengers and crew he smirked and said: "I am a follower of Osama bin Laden. I am an enemy of your country and I don’t care.

"Yeah. I got on the plane with a bomb. I tried to ignite it. Basically, yeah, I intended to damage the plane."

He only objected to being charged with a crime of violence, claiming it was an act of war.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Third of Muslim students back killings
• Curfew tames feral yobs of Cornwall
• £3,000-a-month drug free abroad