Saajid Muhammad Badat (born 28 March 1979) is a British terrorist who was sentenced to a 13-year prison term for planning to blow up an aircraft with a bomb hidden in his shoe.
His co-conspirator Richard Reid attempted unsuccessfully to set off his bomb and is now serving a life sentence without parole in the United States.
Badat returned to the UK in early 2001, but remained in email contact via "Bobu", his handler (alleged to be Tunisian footballer Nizar Trabelsi).
He appears to have cut ties with his handler in Pakistan,[citation needed] but kept the shoe bomb components at his home on St. James Street in Gloucester[5] (the detonator under his bed, the explosive in a hallway cupboard).
[5] After the families were allowed to return, his father Muhammad Badat reportedly spent several days visiting each home in the neighbourhood to apologise for his son.
Theresa May was questioned by Labour MP Keith Vaz about the deal which included the use of taxpayer money to rehouse Badat and provide an office space with phone and internet service.
[10] Saajid Badat also gave evidence (via video-link from his secret hiding place in the UK) in March 2014 at the trial in New York of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (Osama bin Laden's son-in-law), during which he testified that instructions were given to him during his time in Afghanistan (2001) to give shoe bombs to a group of 4 to 5 Malaysian terrorists, one of them the pilot.
One possible target of the Malaysian terrorist plot (masterminded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) would be the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the world's tallest buildings from 1998 until 2004.