Adis Medunjanin (James Messerschmidt)
British prosecutors cut an unprecedented deal with a would-be shoe bomber, lightening his sentence in exchange for testimony against alleged New York subway plotter Adis Medunjanin, officials disclosed today.
Saajid Muhammad Badat, locked up in the UK since 2005, had his prison term reduced from 13 years to 11 years, by agreeing to sing against Medunjanin, whose trial began in Brooklyn this morning.
Prosecutors in England said lending a helping hand to US authorities was worth the two-year break for Badat.
“We considered very carefully the merits of entering into this agreement with a convicted terrorist, and we believe that the administration of justice internationally benefits from such an agreement,” said Sue Hemming, head of the special crime and counter terrorism division of the Crown Prosecution Service .
Badat was a pal of would-be Detroit shoe bomber Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a Paris-to- Miami flight on Dec. 22, 2001. Badat was supposed to be on a trans-Atlantic flight on the same day from Amsterdam, but he backed out at the last second.
In Brooklyn federal court this morning, Medunjanin’s defense lawyer Robert Gottlieb said Badat’s expected testimony can’t be trusted because he was an aspiring “shoe bomber who trained with Richard Reid.”
Medunjanin, 28, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and other terrorist charges, in a plot to blow up Big Apple subways.
Two of Medunjanin’s alleged conspirators — former Queens schoolmates of his — have already pleaded guilty and agreed to help prosecutors.
“In September 2009, three men were prepared to strap bombs to their bodies and walk into New York City subway cars that were filled with innocent people,” said US Attorney James Loonam.
“[The plotters] were prepared to explode their bombs and kill themselves and others.”
Medunjanin and his pals were busted on Jan. 7, 2010.
“These men came within days of carrying out these attacks, before they were stopped by the FBI and the NYPD,” Loonam said.
“These three men were al Qaeda terrorists – al Qaeda terrorists living right here in the United States.”
Loonam said the three men were angry after seeing the mistreatment of Muslims in southwest Asia, so they travelled to Pakistan with the intention of joining the Taliban to fight against US soldiers in Afghanistan.
But they were rejected by the Taliban. Instead, al Qaeda wanted the men to return to the US and launch terror attacks, US authorities said.
“The three men were very valuable to them [al Qaeda] – they had American passports,” Loonam said.
Medunjanin also discussed bombing other iconic Big Apple landmarks — such as Times Square, Grand Central Terminal and the New York Stock Exchange, prosecutors said. But Medunjanin and his pals allegedly settled on the subways as their intended target.
They were told an attack on US soil “could be a tremendous victory for al Qaeda,” according to Loonam.
Medunjanin’s lawyer conceded his client was angry about US involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan — and even considered joining the Afghan insurgency.
But Mendunjanin never wanted to attack Americans here, the defense said.
“The truth is, Adis Medunjanin isn’t a terrorist,” Gottlieb told jurors.
“Mr. Medunjanin never planned to bomb the New York City subways.”
Not long after FBI agents searched his residence, Medunjanin jumped in his car, sped off at 90 mph, and slammed into another car on the Whitestone Expressway, an FBI agent testified during an earlier pre-trial hearing.
“He thought this would be an act of jihad — that there would be an explosion and this would kill people,” special agent Farbod Azad said on the stand.
In court today, Gottlieb explained the wild getaway, saying Medunjani acted in “panic” after the FBI search and tried to commit suicide by crashing his car.
With Post Wire Services