Bomb Suspect’s Background Remains a Mystery

The man suspected of trying to blow up an American Airlines jetliner was under suicide watch Tuesday as authorities investigated conflicting reports that he was a professional explosives maker, an Islamic extremist, a petty thief, a deranged homeless man--or none of the above.

Richard C. Reid spent Christmas Day in a top-security federal lock-down at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility outside Boston, where authorities watched him 24 hours a day via video camera. He has been in solitary confinement since his arrest Saturday afternoon, when the Paris-to-Miami flight on which he allegedly tried to ignite explosives in his shoes made an emergency landing at Boston’s Logan International Airport.

Federal authorities said Tuesday that Reid--or someone else--apparently hollowed out the heels of his high-top sneakers to conceal some type of plastic explosives.

The 28-year-old Reid could have constructed such rudimentary “shoe bombs” by himself, said one federal authority, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. But the FBI now believes that the time and effort needed to hide the explosives in such a fashion--and get them past airport security--was an indication that Reid may have had professional training or assistance, he said. “They get a feeling that there’s something there; they just can’t identify it,” the law enforcement official said of the FBI, regarding potential accomplices. “It’s all very puzzling.”

The Boston Globe reported Tuesday that the FBI believes the shoe bombs found on Reid were so cunningly made that he probably had an accomplice. The paper quoted an unnamed Massachusetts state official as saying that a preliminary examination of Reid’s black suede athletic shoes revealed 4 to 5 ounces of explosive packed into each one and that FBI technicians had found each sole had been hollowed out and a detonation cord protruded from them.

The explosive material usually needs a battery or blasting cap to set it off, but FBI tests found a substance had been added that would have allowed it to be detonated by prolonged exposure to flame, the official told the paper.

“The belief is now that if he had a lighter and not a match, the thing would have detonated,” the official was quoted as saying.

The kind of explosive used still has not been identified. Paul Wilkinson, a terrorism expert at St. Andrews University in Scotland, told the paper that the devices bore signs “of some sophistication.”

“On the face of it, it seems unlikely that an individual working on his own would acquire such an unusual means of destruction,” Wilkinson said.

FBI officials in Washington and Boston refused Tuesday to confirm or deny that report. But they did say that one of the main focuses of the investigation is to determine whether Reid had potential accomplices. Reid has not been charged with any explosives violations. But authorities have stressed that he is being held only on initial charges of interfering with flight crew members by assault or intimidation, while they pursue their investigation.

Reid is due back in U.S. District Court in Boston on Friday for a detention hearing. One federal official said Tuesday that Reid was to be appointed a public defender as early as today.

On Saturday, a vigilant flight attendant averted what the FBI has described as a “major disaster” when she lunged for a lighted match that she said Reid was using to try to light the tongue of his shoe, or some kind of wire that she said was sticking out of it.

After a violent struggle at 30,000 feet, the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Reid was subdued by flight attendants and at least six passengers and was eventually sedated. The FBI’s chief of New England operations, Charles S. Prouty, later said Reid was carrying enough explosives in two “functional improvised . . . devices” to potentially blow a hole in the Boeing 767 and jeopardize the lives of all 197 aboard.

But why Reid would try and detonate explosives in his own shoes at 30,000 feet remained a mystery on Christmas Day.

Despite the holiday, the FBI worked with its counterparts in England and France to sort out conflicting information about Reid, much of it coming from a flurry of often contradictory news reports on four continents.

Britain’s Scotland Yard maintains that Reid is a British citizen who reported his passport lost and was issued a new one three weeks ago in Brussels. But French officials have said Reid is a Sri Lankan Muslim named Tariq Raja who also goes by the name Abdel Rahim. Reid is also reported to have said he was born in Kent, the son of a Jamaican father and British mother.

The FBI has acknowledged that it does not know where Reid was born or even where he was living in the weeks preceding Saturday’s incident. On Tuesday, an FBI official confirmed that agents are looking into the possibility that Reid was homeless, based on his statements.

Reid attempted to board a flight Friday at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, but he was held back and questioned by French authorities after raising the suspicions of American Airlines personnel because of his scant luggage. Reid was let go and the next day boarded Flight 63, reportedly bringing just one carry-on bag for the flight to Miami, with a connecting flight to Antigua, where he apparently has relatives.

FBI officials said Tuesday that they are working with French and British authorities to investigate Reid’s activities in those countries and that they have contacted the bureau’s legal attaches in the Caribbean to determine who Reid knows in Antigua.

Agents also were pursuing a broad array of other leads, FBI officials said.

On Tuesday, European news outlets reported that Reid was known to British police as a petty thief. In London, Scotland Yard refused comment on whether Reid had any record in Britain, referring calls to the FBI. And a report in France’s La Provence newspaper, citing European police and intelligence sources, said Reid had belonged to an Islamic movement called Tabliq but left because he said it was “not radical enough.”

Meanwhile, Reid sat in an isolated prison cell and remained silent--and under constant observation, authorities said.

“He’s been quiet, compliant and cooperative,” according to one law enforcement official familiar with his activities.

One federal law enforcement official said Reid appeared to be indifferent, even bored, despite the fact that his arrest has garnered him headlines around the world as a potential terrorist. “He just sits there. He’s quiet,” said the official. “He’s not talking to anyone.”

*

Times staff writer Judy Pasternak in Washington contributed to this report.