UK terror convict used ‘sacrifice72’ e-mail id

NEW YORK: A British convict who plotted to blow a US passenger plane out of the sky was so determined to die for Al-Qaeda that he used the e-mail address [email protected], he admitted Tuesday.
Saajid Badat, 35, told the New York trial of British hate preacher Abu Hamza that he used the Yahoo account while researching Jewish targets in South Africa.
The word sacrifice was a nod to his determination to die in the cause of violent jihad and 72 a reference to the number of virgins that Al-Qaeda preached a “martyr” is entitled to deflower in heaven.
Badat said he went to Pakistan in mid-2001 to use the Internet to research Jewish targets, which included a Holocaust museum, synagogues and the diamond industry.
Under cross-examination from Abu Hamza’s lawyer Jeremy Schneider, he said he spent two days preparing a “detailed” report for Al-Qaeda bosses on the targets.
He admitted he was willing to see women and children killed should the attacks have gone ahead.
When Al-Qaeda asked him instead to blow a US jet out of the sky and murder hundreds of people in late 2001, he confessed that he felt “honored” and “proud.”
Badat flew back to Britain from Pakistan, via the Netherlands and Turkey, with a shoe bomb strapped to his foot but backed out of the plot in December 2001.
Schneider told the court during cross-examination that Badat had received 75,000 pounds ($125,000) in total benefits from the British government since agreeing to testify against his former Al-Qaeda associates.
The benefits included rent, a TV license, utility bills, travel and hotel expenses, Schneider said.
Badat said he received “very minimal money” and insisted he was “predominantly self-sufficient.”
He said he entered a formal co-operation agreement in 2009. He was released from prison in 2010 after serving 6.5 years for conspiracy to harm an aircraft.
Britain also interceded to free up his assets frozen by UN sanctions, Badat admitted.