Underwear bomber gets life in prison in US

By Anne K Walters Feb 16, 2012, 20:20 GMT

Washington - A Nigerian man who attempted to blow up a passenger jet to Detroit on Christmas 2009 was sentenced to multiple life terms in prison Thursday.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber, had pled guilty to the charges last year, saying that he planned the act in retaliation for US acts against Muslims around the world. The now 25-year-old faced eight charges related to the bombing, including terrorism, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, and attempting to destroy an aircraft.

'My life and lives of Muslims have also changed due to US attacks,' Abdulmutallab told the court at the sentencing. His lawyers had sought a lesser sentence.

In handing down the consecutive life sentences, Judge Nancy Edmunds said Abdulmutallab had not expressed any remorse over his actions.

'To the contrary, he sees that mission as divinely inspired and a continuing mission,' the Detroit Free Press newspaper reported her as saying to the court.

At the sentencing hearing in a US district court in Michigan, passengers aboard the plane had told of their distress and a flight attendant said she is now afraid to do her job. One passenger alleged that Abdulmutallab had been a US government plant designed to prompt cause for greater airport security, but Abdulmutallab rejected that allegation.

The judge allowed prosecutors to show a video of a similar bomb being detonated by the FBI, showing a piece of aluminum being disintegrated by the blast followed by a ball of fire.

On the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate the bomb hidden in his underwear after making numerous trips to the bathroom as he attempted to purify himself. He started a fire, but the bomb did not explode.

When fellow passengers noticed smoke coming from his pants, several passengers tackled Abdulmutallab, pulled his cargo pants down and revealed bulky underwear that contained a bomb, witnesses said.

He had been in contact with the late radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been named in conjunction with the radicalization of other terrorism suspects, including Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan who is charged with shooting dead 13 people at the US military base in Fort Hood, Texas.

Al-Awlaki was killed in a US drone attack last year.

Prosecutors had said Abdulmutallab had been trained to commit jihad by al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and that he had travelled from there to Amsterdam then to Detroit with the intention of crashing the flight and killing the 290 passengers and crew.

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