Osama Bin Laden believed that coordinated shoe-bomb attacks on US-bound jetliners after 9/11 would have demoralised the West and destroyed the US economy, according to a court testimony.
Saajid Muhammad Badat, an admitted al-Qaeda operative, testified through pre-recorded videotape about his connections with bin Laden in Afghanistan just weeks after the September 11 attacks, New York Post reports.
Badat said he met face-to-face with Laden in Afghanistan after being asked to carry out a suicide bombing of a US airliner.
The 33- tear-old Briton said that Laden explained 'the justification' for the planned shoe bomb attacks.
"So after the Sept. 11 attacks, this operation will ruin the aviation industry, and, in turn, the whole [American] economy will come down," Laden said, according to Badat.
Badat and his co-conspirator Richard Reid were convicted of the shoe-bombing plot, but Badat said that he backed out at the last moment.
The pre-recorded testimony in Brooklyn federal court was shown during the trial of Adis Medunjanin, 28, who is accused of being part of an al-Qaeda plot to launch a series of suicide bombings in New York City's subways.
Badat also revealed that, in November 2001, Qaeda's leadership asked him to help Malaysian terrorists, who were planning a shoe-bomb attack aboard a commercial airliner.
Badat is serving a prison term after pleading guilty in London to conspiring to destroy an aircraft.
During the trial another convict, Bryant Neal Vinas, an Qaeda convert, who was part of an aborted mortar attack against US forces in Afghanistan, took the stand as government witness.
