BRITAIN: The Jamaican father of alleged British "shoe bomber", Mr Richard Reid, has defended his son, blaming his own prison life for the events of December 22nd, in an interview with a British newspaper yesterday.
"Look at the terrible childhood he had and the broken home he came from," Mr Robin Reid (51) told the Mirror tabloid, in what the paper claimed was his first interview since his son allegedly tried to blow up an American Airlines Boeing 767 flying from Paris to Miami using explosives hidden in his shoes.
"Look at the father he had. I have spent 18 years in total behind bars. That can't have helped, can it?" He added: "With that kind of childhood, what sort of defence could he put up against lunatic religious fanatics leading him astray?" Mr Richard Reid (28) dropped out of school and turned to street crime, building up a string of convictions and converting to Islam while in prison.
After his release in 1996, he began attending a south London mosque where he was influenced by radical Muslims.
"In my heart, I still believe Richard didn't intend to blow that plane up and that what he did was a gesture to his fanatical colleagues to gain more acceptance," Mr Robin Reid told the paper.
His son is currently in detention in Boston after appearing in court charged with intimidation and interfering with a flight crew.
Mr Robin Reid told the Mirror he had not been back to jail for eight years, after spending time behind bars mainly for stealing offences.