Intelligence

Understanding Insanity

THE FIRM. Because there is life outside London

In 2002 The firm’s U.S.-based reporter Noel Young received a personal letter from the shoe bomber Richard Reid. In light of the recent London atrocities The Firm prints extracts of his letter in an effort to try and understand the motivations of a suicide bomber.

Richard Reid's letter is published in full after the main article below.

When Britain’s four young suicide bombers died in the holocaust they created in London on 7 July, they left behind them dozens of unanswered questions. Many might have been answered if they had been brought to trial, but that was not to be: there were to be no probing questions from the prosecution, no concise address to the jury by M’Lud.
But an earlier, failed, British suicide bomber Richard Reid, now held in the US’s most secure prison in Colorado, did in fact answer such questions. Not only in court, where American lawyers bent over backwards to give him a fair hearing, but also in an extraordinary six-page letter to me, painstakingly written on both sides of prison notepaper. At the time, I had no idea how unique this insight into the mind of a suicide bomber was to prove.
I had written to Reid on behalf of a British newspaper, seeking an interview at the Massachusetts prison where he was being held, following his abortive attempt to blow up an American airliner heading from Paris to Miami at Christmastime, 2001.
To add depth to the letter, I threw in a couple of questions about statements Reid had made in court. This is what I wrote:
“Dear Mr Reid,
I was in court in Boston last week when you told Judge Young, ‘I don’t recognise your law and I don’t recognise your system. I don’t recognise any of your laws at all.’
I am a correspondent for British newspapers here in Boston. Previously I worked as a journalist in Scotland, my native country, for many years. I have attended most of the court hearings concerning yourself in Boston since last December and was impressed when you pleaded guilty to all eight charges, relieving pressure on your family members.
I have now been asked by the editor of a London newspaper if you will agree to an interview so that you can explain to people in Britain why you feel the system there let you down, why you chose to live abroad and why you took the actions you took.”
I thought to myself “fat chance” as I put the letter in the envelope and stuck on the stamp, even giving my home address, confident that I would never hear any more about it. After all, Reid was the most closely guarded prisoner in US history.
You can imagine my elation/horror/dismay/delight when three weeks later my wife walked into the breakfast room and said. “There’s a handwritten letter here for you from a Mr Reid.” She turned the envelope over and spied the official stamp. “My God, it’s from the prison at Walpole.”
Reid began his letter with a greeting in Arabic: “In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.” He then went on, “I recently received your letter requesting an interview. In reality I am not interested in giving interviews nor do I believe that the American government would allow for such an interview to take place. However you asked me about my statement to the judge, that I don’t recognise American law nor the American system and you also asked me about my reasons for choosing to live in Afghanistan and for carrying out the acts that led to my arrest so I will try to answer those questions.”
Reid declared that he had no regrets over trying to bring down the plane with 197 people onboard.
“I make no apologies for my activities nor those of my associates. If people want the attacks on the West to stop then they should start looking to their own selves.”
“The attacks on American interests,” he said, “will not be stopped unless the Americans stop their oppression of the Muslims.”
He then outlined a whole range of grievances, which he said the Muslims have with the US.
Reid asked that the letter be published in full. The paper, which originally commissioned me, decided that they didn’t want the letter – only a full-blown interview would do for them. The Sunday Mirror, however, recognised the uniqueness of the epistle, and decided they would publish it in part as they decided that only a fair and balanced report would be given.
“You asked me where do I feel that the British system failed me,” Reid wrote. “In reality my actions did not come from some personal grievance but rather because of my belief that the Western countries, with America at their head, are both openly and secretly fighting the religion of Allah [Islam].”
Reid, who converted to Islam at the age of 19, after being introduced to the religion by Pakistani inmates in an English jail, criticised the Northern Alliance, the West’s allies in the fight to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan.
“These groups claim to be fighting for democracy but the reality is that they were and probably still are a bunch of rapists and homosexuals whose preference is young boys,” Reid wrote.
“This is the main reason they refused to surrender to the Taliban because they didn’t want to be punished for the rapes and similar acts they’d carried out when Kabul was under their control the first time around.”
He described Saddam Hussein as a tyrant placed in power by the US. The sanctions on Iraq, he said, had caused the deaths of more than two million children, “yet Saddam, who originally came into power in Iraq with American backing, has not suffered from the sanctions.”
Of course, he was to suffer later.
Reid complained that the US government gave funding to countries like Egypt and Turkey. “These countries use that money to oppress those who call for the implementation of Islamic law. They use imprisonment, rape and torture to demoralise the Muslims.
“In occupied Palestine the Jews, whose blatant oppression of the Palestinian Muslims is well known, also receive backing from America. In Sudan, American-backed Christian rebels regularly attack Muslim villages using tactics, which could be referred to as terrorist acts.
“In the Philippines American trained soldiers using American weapons and American funding attack and terrorise the Muslims in certain areas because those Muslims wish to have an independent area which is ruled by Islamic law.”
The US, he says, is supporting oppression, in the name of freedom and democracy. “The reality is that the freedom that they’re talking about is nothing other than forcing the Muslims to accept laws that legalise homosexuality, fornication, adultery etc. because those who run the American government make money out of the industries that are related to the promotion of those immoral deeds.”
Reid was concerned about teenage pregnancies in Western cities. “Teenage girls constantly find themselves responsible for bringing up children whose fathers take little or no responsibility for them.
“Why? Because, the western governments, in the name of freedom, have allowed the mass media to glorify immorality and to promote it. They’ve legalised fornication, homosexuality, pornography etc. and encouraged the promotion of these things because of greed.
“Muslims seek the justice of the laws of Allah who created the heavens and earth and it is this for which we fight,” he wrote. “As for those who wish to condemn our means of warfare, then we did not drop a nuclear bomb on Japan nor do we fund the torture of our opponents.”
That remark also turned out to be grimly prophetic.
Reid had one more surprise in store for the authorities in Boston. After six court appearances and with the city gearing-up for a three-week show trial (terrorist-proof barriers had been erected outside the Federal courthouse) Reid told the judge that he wanted to plead guilty because “I know what I have done.”
As his lawyers fought to keep references to Al Qaeda out of the charges, Reid announced that it didn’t matter, “I’m a member of Al Qaeda, I pledge to Osama bin Laden and I’m an enemy of your country, and I don’t care. Simple and plain.”
Reid answered “Yeah” to Judge William Young when asked if he understood that he faced a minimum of 60 years in jail.
His guilty plea was later explained by his lawyer as being “to save his family embarrassment.”
The only member of family Reid was known to be close to was his mother, Lesley Hughes, a librarian from Frome, in Somerset.
In e-mails left to be sent to her, he asks that what he has done should not cause her to hate Islam and pleads, “Forgive me for all the problems I have caused you both in life and in death and don’t be angry for what I have done.”
At first the US authorities thought Reid was a low-level operative. Later that assumption was to be questioned.
On 23 January 2002, almost exactly a month after Reid’s failed plot, Daniel Pearl, a reporter on the Wall Street Journal was kidnapped, later to be brutally murdered, in Pakistan. He was there trying to find out more about the travels and activities of the shoe bomber.
When I received the letter from Reid I assumed that it had been thoroughly vetted by the FBI and prison authorities. I knew other letters had been confiscated and I thought they had decided to let this one out for their own reasons.
However, to cover myself, I forwarded copies to the US Attorney in Boston and to the local FBI ‘for their files’.
In fact I later learned that there was consternation when Reid’s letter to me was revealed. It was a complete fluke that it had got out – something to do with the changing of the guard rosters.
The authorities were not slow to make use of Reid’s eloquence, however. Using chunks from the letter at the sentencing hearing to prove that Reid indeed had no regrets for his actions.
Reid, who had appeared indifferent throughout his earlier court hearings, finally lost his cool when he was sentenced to life and a concurrent sentence of 110 years by Judge William Young.
He waved a fist at the judge shouting, “You’re not going to stand me down. You’ll go down. You will be judged by Allah,” before four US marshals dragged him from the courtroom.
Judge Young told Reid that to consider himself a “warrior” in a global war between Islam and the West “gives you far too much stature.”
He went on: “You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist.
“We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr Reid. We are Americans, we have been through the fire before.”
Then Young motioned to the American flag behind him. “See that flag, Mr Reid?” Young said. “That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom. You know it always will.”
Reid replied: “That flag will be brought down on the day of judgement, and you will see in front of your Lord and my Lord, and then we will know.”
Today Reid is serving his sentence at the US’s most secure prison in Colorado.
He is subject to special restrictions, including FBI monitoring of all his mail and conversations, even with visiting family members.
“He clearly poses an ongoing threat and risk to our country. And it’s important to ensure that he’s not able to get out his messages of hate or any particular plans he has to any other would-be terrorists,” said the US Attorney in Boston, Michael Sullivan. “Reid will now spend the rest of his life in prison, unable to fulfil his delusional quest to destroy democracy and the United States of America in the name of religion.”
Since the London atrocities, many have been wondering what on earth we can do if young Muslims are prepared to give their lives – and take countless innocents with them – to make their protest. Nothing it is clear would have deterred Richard Reid. Nothing would have deterred Germaine Lindsay, with a toddler son and another child on the way. Not tanks, or guns or planes. Certainly not the ludicrously named “War on Terror”.
Somehow we have to get inside the minds of these desperate young people and convince them there has to be a better way: that life and love is a million times more preferable than mindless mutilation and death.

Richard Reid’s Letter to Noel Young in full

Mr Young,

I recently received your letter requesting an interview. In reality I am not interested in giving interviews nor do I believe that the American government would allow for such an interview to take place. However you asked me about my statement to the judge. That I don’t recognise American law nor the American system and you also asked me about my reasons for choosing to live in Afghanistan and for carrying out the acts that led to my arrest, so I will try to answer those questions on the condition that the following text is not edited or altered in any form.

I start by praising Allah who created the heavens and earth in six days and who causes the sky to send its rain and the earth to produce its fruits. The One who causes day to follow night and night to follow day and who sent prophets and messengers to guide mankind to the clear path, the path of truth and righteousness and to warn them from following the false paths and the corrupted desires and lust’s. The false paths and the corrupted desires and lusts. And I send peace and blessings upon the final prophet, Muhammad ibn Abdullah al Quraishi, who was sent with the perfect law that covers all matters temporal and secular. May the blessings of Allah be upon him and his family and companions; and those to follow their way until the day of resurrection.
To proceed - Allah says in the Qur-an that which has the following meaning “O people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) come to a world that is just between us and you that we worship none but Allah and we associate no partners (sons etc) with him and that we should not take Lords from our ownselves besides Allah. (chapter 3, verse 4).
He also says what it means “And we have sent down to you the book (the Qur-an.) In truth confirming that which came before it from the scriptures and as a witness over them so judge between them (the people) by that which Allah has revealed and do not follow their desires diverging from the truth that has come to you (chap 5 vs 8)
You asked me where do I feel that the British system failed me. In reality my actions did not come from some personal grievance but rather because of my belief that the Western countries with America at their head are both openly and secretly fighting the religion of Allah (Islam). This is because they by reasons of sanctions and direct force seek to enforce upon the Muslims man-made secularist laws which contradict many of the laws which Allah sent down upon his prophet. The American government and press have openly insulted the Islamic sharjah by calling it repressive and backwards etc. At the same time the American government gives funding to the secularist apostate governments of countries like Egypt and Turkey, these countries use that money to oppress those who call for the implementation of Islamic law. They use imprisonment, rape and torture to demoralize the Muslims.
The American government knows this yet in the name of democracy and freedom it continues to fund those responsible for these acts. Under the same guise they’ve placed sanctions on Iraq which have caused the deaths of more than two million children. They claim that those sanctions are in order to secure peace and freedom in the area and that they’re aimed at weakening Saddam Hussein ‘s grip on power, yet Saddam who originally came into power in Iraq with American backing has not suffered due to the sanctions in fact he’s allowed to sell oil both officially and unofficially to his neighbouring countries of Turkey and Jordan both of whom have American backed governments and both of whom openly oppress the Islamists and employ rape and torture in their prisons on a regular basis.
In occupied Palestine the Jews whose blatant oppression of the Palestinian Muslims is well known also receive backing from America. In America zionists openly collect money for the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine yet those who collect money to send charity to Muslims in the squalid refugee camps on the Palestinian border have been classed as terrorists! To make things even clearer the Americans placed sanctions on Afghanistan over four years ago when the Taliban government refused to back down its implementation of Islamic laws. The American government openly and freely insulted the sharjah of Islam and called it repressive and backward and roughly two years ago they start chanelling funds into some of the Northern Alliance groups. These groups claim to be fighting for democracy but the reality is that they were and probably still are a bunch of rapists and homosexuals whose preference is young boys, this is the main reason they refused to surrender to the Taliban because they didn’t want to be punished for the rapes and similar acts they’d carried out when Kabul was under their control the first time around.
In Sudan American-backed Christian rebels regularly attack Muslim villages using tactics which could be referred to as terrorist acts and in the Phillipines American trained soldiers using American weapons and American funding attack and terrorize the Muslims in certain areas because those Muslims wish to have an independent area which is ruled by Islamic law.
In all these are very few places in the world where the Muslims are being oppressed except that America is supporting those involved in that oppression, all this is in the name of freedom and democracy but the reality is that the freedom that they’re talking about is nothing other than forcing the Muslims to accept laws that legalize homosexuality, fornication, adultery etc. because those who run the American government make money out of the industries that are related to the promotion of those immoral deeds. So when the Americans talk about freedom they mean the freedom to promote immorality and corrupt society. As for the Muslims we seek to live under Allah’s laws. These laws allow that people keep their own religion and no one is forced to embrace Islam under them yet they forbid the promotion of vices such as homosexuality, adultery, etc. and set firm means of checking the spread of such immoralities thus is aimed at protecting society as a whole. In any western city you can see the ill effect that allowing the promotion of self fulfillment has had. Teenage girls constantly find themselves responsible of bringing up children whose fathers take little or no responsibility for them. These girls on their own are not able to both find an ample living and to look after and bring up their children so you get a cycle and things go from bad to worse. Why? Because the western governments in the name of freedom have allowed the mass media to glorify immorality and to promote it. They’ve legalized fornication, homosexuality, pornographny etc. and encouraged the promotion of these things because of greed. It is out of the same greed that the American government has placed sanctions on Iraq leading to the deaths of over two million children and it’s from this same greed that they back the secularist governments that torture and rape thousands of Muslims; that they seek to enforce their corrupt man made laws upon the Muslims of the world.
Thus the reality is this: Americans are oppressive repressive tyrants while we the Muslims seek the justice of the laws of Allah who created the heavens and earth and it is this for which we fight.
As for those who wish to condemn our means of warfare, then we did not drop a nuclear bomb on Japan nor do we fund the torture of our opponents nor did we place sanctions on a people for the crimes of a tyrant whom we placed in power thus leading to the deaths of millions of children as America has done in Iraq.
As such I make no apologies for my activities nor those of my associates and I state that if people want the attacks on the West to stop then they should start looking to their ownselves because as far as we’re concerned whoever supports the American government’s activities in the Muslim world or helps them in that by any means is equally responsible for those acts and thus such people have as one but their own selves to blame for the attacks on American interests and such attacks will not be stopped unless the Americans stop their oppression of the Muslims.
Lastly I’ll finish by declaring my freedom from the man made laws of the west and declaring my allegiance to Allah and his messenger and to those who seek to see Allah’s law implemented amongst the Mujahideen and righteous Muslims. And I bear witness that none has the right to be worshipped except Allah alone without partners and that muhammed (peace be upon him) is his final prophet and messenger whom he sent to all of mankind to remove them from the injustice of false manmade laws to the justice of Islam and from the darkness of the false desires to the light of faith and belief in Allah

Written and signed:
Aldur Roheen Abn Ibrahin al Jamaicy

August 2, 2005 at 07:10 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home