Mosque leader says he warned police

12/27/2001

By BETH GARDINER
Associated Press Writer

Suspect Richard C. Reid AP/Plymouth

LONDON — Police failed to act on warnings that Islamic radicals were recruiting young Muslims at a south London mosque once attended by a man who is now suspected of trying to detonate explosives aboard an airliner, the mosque's leader said Thursday.

``We've been saying for a long time that these people are recruiting,'' Abdul Haqq Baker, chairman of the Brixton mosque, said. ``We've been warning about them, and look what's happened now.''

Richard C. Reid, who formerly attended the Brixton mosque, was overpowered by flight attendants and passengers after he allegedly tried to detonate explosives in his sneaker aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Saturday.

``When we saw him in the papers were like, 'Oh, gosh, our worst nightmare has come true,''' Baker said.

Baker said Reid — also known as Abdel Rahim — drifted away from the Brixton community after falling under the influence of radicals.

Reid has been charged with intimidation or assault of a flight crew and could face 20 years in prison. He is being held in jail under suicide watch pending a psychological examination.

According to news reports, Reid was born in south London in 1973, the son of a Jamaican father and an English mother. He joined the Brixton mosque in 1996 after serving a prison sentence for street crimes, the reports said. Scotland Yard has declined to give any details of Reid's record.

Chairman of the Brixton Mosque in London AP/Max Nash

Baker described Reid as ``a very likable character, amiable, affable, he had that enthusiasm of new converts.'' Reid, Baker added, was ``very impressionable'' and was willing to listen to the views of radicals who circulated leaflets in the area.

``He would always give someone time to speak,'' Baker said.

Reid joined the mosque at about the same time as Zacarias Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent charged in the United States with conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Baker said.

ABC News reported Wednesday that European authorities have evidence of contact between Moussaoui and Reid late last year, and that the two spent time together in a training camp in Afghanistan run by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

Two U.S. government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said some low-level al-Qaida members captured in Afghanistan were shown Reid's picture and recognized him, saying he trained at bin Laden's terrorist training camps. However, the officials said in Washington that they had not verified the prisoners' claims.

``At the end of Zacarias Moussaoui being in the community and spouting off his views, it was true that Mr. Reid was attending at the same time,'' Baker told reporters earlier. ``I'm pretty confident they were attending the extreme scholarship classes being held by some of the extremists who could not attend our center.''

``He was one who was easily led — the way the whole thing was bungled is because of his naivety,'' Baker said.

``The way he tried to commit this act shows his gullibility. He was sent as a tester though he was not to know that. We are confident he was not acting alone.''

Brixton mosque, which claims 500 members and as many more people who are loosely affiliated, is located in a row of Victorian house. It attracts many converts and teaches ``basic, mainstream orthodox'' Islam, but has attracted some ``extreme elements'' who targeted enthusiastic converts like Reid, Baker said.

Baker suggested Reid might have had contact with more radical mosques such as the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, home of militant Egyptian-born cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri. Al-Masri told the BBC he had no knowledge of Reid.

Meanwhile, a Paris airport security firm told CNN Tuesday that it warned French authorities on two different days that Reid should be screened further, but authorities cleared him to fly.

Head of security firm IVTC Lior Zucker said his security officers recommended Friday and Saturday that French authorities take a closer look at Reid. ICTS does security screening for American Airlines in France and in other European countries.

Zucker would not go into details about why his agents were suspicious of Reid.