Supergrass 'shoebomber' secretly freed from British jail after he agreed to testify against Al Qaeda terrorists in return for shorter sentence

A would-be shoe bomber has become the first terrorist in the UK to have his sentence cut after agreeing to testify against al Qaida suspects in a US terror trial.

Saajid Muhammad Badat had his 13 year sentence cut to 11 and was out of jail in March 2010 after the secret agreement with prosecutors, which is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK.

Badat was jailed in 2005 after he admitted plotting to explode a shoebomb on a transatlantic flight in December 2001 at the same time as fellow shoebomber Richard Reid, but changed his mind and decided not to go through with it.

Sue Hemming, head of the CPS special crime and counter terrorism division, said the agreement had not been entered into lightly.

It will see Badat give evidence in the US trial, which opens in Brooklyn today, of Adis Medunjanin over an al Qaida plot to bomb the New York subway. Read More