Saajid Badat, the man who was working with shoe bomber Richard Reid in a plot to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic but backed out at the last minute, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by British authorities.

Badat, 25, is a native of Gloucester, England. He pled guilty in February to plotting to detonate a shoe bomb on a flight from Manchester, England to the United States with a stopover in Amsterdam on December 17, 2001. At the last minute, he changed his mind and did not get on the plane.

Reid, his co-conspirator, got on a flight from Paris to Miami five days later but was unable to detonate the explosives in his shoe.

Judge Adrian Fulford decided to give a lenient sentence to Badat because he had a 'genuine change of heart.'

Badat's lawyer, Michael Mansfield told Reuters that, 'Badat had effectively agreed to become a courier of death. But he came to recognize that this was not the way forward.'

Reid is presently serving a life sentence for his involvement in the plot. Reid never entered into a plea bargaining agreement and did not show much remorse.