A British man who trained to be a shoe bomber a decade ago said Osama bin Laden told him shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks that he believed a follow-up terrorism attack could doom the American economy.

Saajid Badat recounted his meeting with the al-Qaeda founder in videotaped testimony that was played Monday for a federal jury in Brooklyn.

“So he said the American economy is like a chain,” Badat said. “If you break one — one link of the chain, the whole economy will be brought down. So after Sept. 11 attacks, this operation will ruin the aviation industry and in turn the whole economy will come down.”

Badat, 33, was convicted in London in a 2001 plot to down an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes. His testimony came in the federal trial of Adis Medunjanin, who is accused in a 2009 plot to attack New York’s subways with suicide bombs.

Badat said he was supposed to carry out a simultaneous bombing with failed shoe-bomber Richard Reid but he backed out because of his reluctance, fear and the effect it would have on his family. He said he informed his handler in Pakistan by email but never notified bin Laden.

In testimony recorded last month, Badat said he refused a request to testify in person because he remains under indictment in Boston on charges alleging he conspired with Reid and he has been told he’d be arrested if he set foot in the United States.

Arrested in November 2003, Badat is free after serving six years of an 11-year prison sentence. He testified that he began cooperating in part because he hoped to testify someday against Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who has claimed responsibility while in U.S. custody as the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks. He said Mohammed gave final orders to himself and Reid, who is serving a life sentence.

“He just gave us advice, uh, on how to interact with each other, how to contact each other,” Badat said.

Badat said he believed Mohammed and others like him take advantage of vulnerable youths to carry out terrorism attacks. On cross-examination, he said he believed some of the Sept. 11 hijackers were victims like the others who died that day, “to lesser extent, to a much lesser extent.”

Reid and Badat traveled with each other just weeks before the planned December 2001 attacks, meeting for a time with a group of Malaysians who were preparing to perform a hijacking similar to the Sept. 11 attacks, Badat said.

“I provided them with one of my shoes because — both had explosives inserted into them,” he testified.

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