Shoebomber phoned September 11th accused

Alleged shoe bomber Mr Richard Reid made a series of phone calls to a man charged in connection with the September 11th attacks…

Alleged shoe bomber Mr Richard Reid made a series of phone calls to a man charged in connection with the September 11th attacks when they both lived in Britain, it was confirmed today.

The two men's phone calls were intercepted by British security agents, US law enforcement officials told the Washington Times.

Mr Zacarias Moussaoui is the only man to have been charged in connection with the September 11th atrocity and faces six counts of conspiring to hijack planes and launch attacks on America.

His conversations with Mr Reid were intercepted late in 2000 and ended in December of that year when he left Britain and travelled to Pakistan, the Washington Timesreported.

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American prosecutors claim Mr Moussaoui sneaked across the border to Afghanistan where he trained at an Al-Qaeda camp, before travelling to the US to learn how to fly.

Mr Reid is being held in Boston, where he was arrested when the American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami he was on was forced to make an emergency landing.

He is accused of having tried to light a fuse attached to plastic explosives concealed in one of his shoes, which FBI agents believe could have downed the Boeing 757 airliner.

He has been charged with interfering with flight crew, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, but is likely to face more charges, some of them carrying the death penalty.