"Gov't Concedes No Moussaoui-Reid Evidence

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By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer

April 20,2006 | ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The government conceded Thursday it had no evidence that would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid was to have conducted a terrorist hijacking with Zacarias Moussaoui, as Moussaoui has claimed.

The defense introduced a statement, agreed to by the government, that was presented to the jury considering whether Moussaoui should be executed or imprisoned for life.

Moussaoui had stunned his trial on March 27 by claiming for the first time that he had intended to participate in the Sept. 11 attacks before his arrest a month earlier.

Earlier, defense lawyers tried to bring Reid to court from a federal prison in Colorado, where he is serving a life sentence for attempting to detonate a shoe bomb on a trans-Atlantic flight in late 2001.

That bid was thwarted. But defense attorneys were able to obtain from the government its agreement on the statement about Reid instead.

"No information is available to indicate that Richard Reid had pre-knowledge of the Sept. 11 operation or was instructed by al-Qaida leaders to conduct an operation in coordination with Moussaoui," the statement said.

It also said Reid had named Moussaoui as the beneficiary in his will and two FBI analysts concluded that was an unlikely decision for him to make if they were going to be on a joint suicide mission.

The statement also said that the FBI has learned from al-Qaida sources that Reid had been ordered to undertake shoe-bombing attacks in late 2001 with another operative, Saajid Badat, who pulled out of the operation and has never been heard from again.

The two FBI analysts also said that it was unlikely Reid was part of a Sept. 11 plot with Moussaoui because he spent the period from May to September 2001 traveling abroad, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, Turkey and Amsterdam and The Hague in the Netherlands.

By contrast, the statement said, all members of the Sept. 11 operation were in the United States by July 2001.

Defense lawyers hoped the statement would undercut the surprising witness-stand claim by Moussaoui that he and Reid were to have been part of the attacks. The lawyers have been suggesting in their questions that their client lied either to achieve martyrdom through execution or to enhance his role in history."


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