As bomber openly walks the streets, what WAS the point of doing freedom deal in secret?
‘Shopping and seeing family and friends’ ‘Everybody here knows who he is’
THE CONVICTED terrorist released from prison early after becoming an Al Qaeda supergrass has made a mockery of the secret arrangement by flaunting his freedom, it emerged yesterday.
Saajid Muhammad Badat, 33, jailed for 13 years for plotting to blow up a transatlantic jet, has been seen in his home city of Gloucester ‘loads of times’ since he was set free two years ago.
Incredibly, he even sought a character reference from a local councillor, tried to land a job as a children’s sport coach and wants to advise youngsters on the dangers of being brainwashed by extremists. Under the terms of his controversial release, probation officers stopped monitoring him a year ago and he is a free man.
The revelations intensified the row over Badat being secretly let out of jail in March 2010. His early release was only revealed by Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service on Monday.
A key issue justifying the clandestine court proceedings which paved the way for the former grammar schoolboy’s freedom was the ‘ personal safety’ of Badat. Officials were concerned that he could be at risk because he had agreed to testify against a suspected terrorist in the U.S.
Yet the former Islamic fundamentalist, who planned to blow up a plane in a coordinated attack with fellow Briton Richard Reid in December 2001, turned down the offer of a new identity and has made no effort to disguise the fact he is back on the streets.
Last night MPS said the fact that Badat has been so open about his freedom raised questions about the necessity of holding the court hearing in secret.
A local newsagent told the Mail yesterday: ‘ I have seen Saajid recently, yes. Since he’s been out he’s been back here loads of times. He’s been into my shop, he has been round to see his family and his friends.
‘I am sure he will keep coming back. He is well known and everybody in this community is behind him. As far as we are concerned he has done his time. He was young and vulnerable and somebody got into his head, that was all. I was shocked when I heard what he had got involved in.’
But city councillor Usman Bhaimia told how Badat had contacted him after he was freed asking for a character reference for a course to become a children’s sports coach and said he hoped to train as a school PE teacher.
‘He told me he wanted to teach PE to young people,’ Mr Bhaimia, 60, said. ‘He was very keen to do it and he contacted me to ask for a reference. There was a course in Gloucester he wanted to get on to train as a sports coach.
‘He said in the future he was hoping to become a PE teacher.
‘He told me he had changed and that he wanted to mentor young people, and try to advise them not to do what he had done.’
‘He wanted to be a role model for them, an example to other kids. He says he was misled and brainwashed. He knows he did wrong and he wants to rectify it.’
Mr Bhaimia added: ‘I told him I could not give him a character reference because of what happened before, when he tried to blow up a plane.
‘I advised him not to do the course in Gloucester, where everybody knew who he was. I said he should move to a different area.
‘He agreed that this was a good idea. The last thing I heard he was looking to do the course in London. I think now he wants to find a good wife, have children and live his life as a good Muslim. He seems to have changed totally.’
The Mail has led criticism of plans for more secret courts as an affront to traditions of open justice.
But the Badat case has raised questions about the extent of secrecy surrounding criminal courts. Details of his release might never have been made public but for a trial in New York this week where he is due to give evidence by video-link against suspected U.S. terrorist Adis Medunjanin.
Medunjanin is accused of plotting an Al Qaeda attack on the New York subway on the eighth anniversary of 9/11 in 2009.
Last night John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP who campaigns against secret justice, said Badat’s case had reinforced the need for more parliamentary scrutiny of these secret hearings.
He said: ‘If it was not for U.S. rules, we would never have known about this case.
‘The point is we should know what is being done in our name so that we know it’s reasonable for that to happen.’ Patrick Mercer, senior Tory MP and former security adviser to David Cameron, said: ‘A great deal of time and money has been spent having Saajid Badat’s hearing in secret and endeavouring to protect him from his enemies.
‘His choice not to accept a new identity and to walk about with apparent impunity is very difficult to understand and it makes me wonder if taxpayers’ money was correctly spent in the first place.’
Badat’s early release from prison, in return for grassing on former Al Qaeda comrades, was set in motion following a private discussion between a judge, his solicitor and prosecutors in November 2009.
The keen footballer, who was jailed in 2005, would only have been eligible for release in July this year, with a licence period extending to August 2013.