International Courant
Simply months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, an al Qaeda supporter snuck onto American Airways Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with explosives packed into his footwear, however his failed try and detonate spared the lives of practically 200 folks and despatched him to jail for the remainder of his life.
Based on the FBI, the ten ounces of selfmade explosives in his footwear had been sufficient to blow a gap within the aspect of the airplane and kill everybody on board.
“Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid, the 50-year-old British citizen who educated with the fear group in Pakistan and Afghanistan, is serving a life jail sentence on the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.
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“Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid, the 50-year-old British citizen who educated with the al Qaeda terror group in Pakistan and Afghanistan, is serving a life jail sentence on the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. (Reuters/Plymouth County Jail/Handout)
In 2006, the Transportation Safety Administration carried out a shoe-removal rule at its airport checkpoints as a result of “intelligence pointing to a seamless risk.”
In October, FBI Director Christopher Wray instructed Congress “terror threats have elevated” amid protests and debate over the continuing conflict between Israel and the Hamas terror group, and he warned that future lone wolf assaults stay a risk.
“The fact is that the terrorism risk has been elevated all through 2023, however the ongoing conflict within the Center East has raised the specter of an assault in opposition to Individuals in the US to a complete different stage,” Wray mentioned.
Reid, who additionally used the aliases Abdul-Raheem and Abu Ibrahim Abdul Raheem, admitted to the 2001 plot and his allegiance to al Qaeda’s then-leader, Osama bin Laden, in court docket.
After Reid reached all the way down to attempt to mild a fuse in his footwear on Dec. 22, 2001, fellow passengers tied him up and the pilot made an emergency touchdown in Boston, the place he was arrested.
Then-Legal professional Common John Ashcroft praised the passengers and crew for thwarting the assault.
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That is the pair of footwear that Richard Reid, aka the “Shoe Bomber,” tried to detonate. (FBI)
A flight attendant confronted Reid when he lit the match. Passengers jumped in to assist, grabbing him by the legs and arms and strapping him down with belts “and no matter was out there.” A health care provider on board sedated the terrorist.
“On Flight 63, for a only a few minutes no less than, each passenger was vigilant and alert, each passenger an air marshal,” Ashcroft mentioned throughout a information briefing to announce Reid’s indictment on Jan. 16, 2002. “And because of this, 197 folks on board that flight made it to the bottom safely.”
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Reid smirked in court docket, laughed at prosecutors and mentioned he did not acknowledge the U.S. prison justice system earlier than pleading responsible on Oct. 4, 2002. He obtained a number of life sentences plus one other 110 years in jail with out the potential of parole, based on court docket information.
“I am an enemy of your nation, and I do not care,” he mentioned earlier than his sentencing.
Police stand guard outdoors the U.S. District Courthouse in Boston on Oct. 4, 2002, as Richard Reid pleaded responsible to costs tied to his tried bombing of American Airways Flight 63. (Reuters/Brian Snyder)
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Regardless of that, he tried interesting his case and wrote to a federal court docket clerk in 2021 to inquire about the potential of a sentence discount.
As a result of he was practically 20 years previous the statute of limitations for such a request, it failed.
In 2015, the criminologist Kim Mehlman-Orozco shared a few of her correspondence with Reid with NBC Information and The Telegraph.
In a letter to her from jail, he mentioned he had “some tactical regrets” over his failure to detonate the bomb and had no regret for the victims of a 2015 terrorist assault on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 useless.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
Michael Ruiz is a reporter for Fox Information Digital. Story suggestions could be despatched to [email protected] and on Twitter: @mikerreports
