The trial of Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and al-Qaeda spokesman after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks resumes tomorrow with the airing of testimony from a London resident who says he participated in a 2001 shoe-bomb plot.
Saajid Badat will testify live via videotape from London at the New York trial of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith about his experiences with al-Qaeda after the attacks that demolished the World Trade Center. Some of the lawyers in the case flew to London on Friday to pose questions.
Prosecutors are using the testimony to try to show that Abu Ghaith knew of al-Qaeda's plans when he promised in videotapes sent across the world in the weeks after the September 11 attacks that "the storm of airplanes will not abate" against Americans and advised Muslims in America and Great Britain to stay off aircraft.
Abu Ghaith, born in Kuwait, faces a possible life prison sentence if he is convicted of conspiring to kill Americans and of providing material support to al-Qaeda.
His trial began in federal court in Manhattan last week, a year after he was captured in Turkey and brought to the United States for trial. About five years ago, he married bin Laden's eldest daughter, Fatima.
Badat was expected to testify tomorrow after defense lawyers cross-examine another witness, Sahim Alwan. The Lackawanna, New York, man testified on Friday that he met bin Laden three times and heard Abu Ghaith speak to al-Qaida recruits while undergoing training in Afghanistan several months before the 2001 attacks.
Alwan pleaded guilty in 2003 to providing material support to terrorists by attending bin Laden's al-Farooq camp and served about seven years in prison.
Badat was convicted in London in a 2001 plot to down an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes.
