US News

Nigerian terrorist suspect charged, Yemen ties probed

Dec 27, 2009, 9:57 GMT

An undated handout made available by Saharareporters.com on 27 December 2009 shows terror suspect Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in an undisclosed location. EPA/SAHARAREPORTERS.COM HANDOUT/BEST QUALITY AVAILABLE

   Washington - The son of a wealthy Nigerian banker was charged Saturday with attempting to destroy a Northwest Airlines passenger plane carrying 278 passengers on Christmas Day.

   The 23-year-old man attempted the attack as the plane approached the Detroit, Michigan, airport on Friday.

   Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was being treated at the University of Michigan Medical Centre in nearby Ann Arbor for burns he received when he tried to set off the volatile PETN explosives.

He was dressed in a hospital gown and handcuffed to a wheelchair when the charges were read.

   Abdulmutallab is believed to have smuggled the material on board sometime on the way from Lagos, Nigeria to Detroit via Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. He claimed he had connections to the terrorist network al-Qaeda and terrorist groups in Yemen, The New York Times reported.

   An alert passenger, Jasper Schuringa, smelled the smoke, saw flames, and leaped over passengers and seats to subdue the suspect he thought was trying to blow up the plane.

   'The fire was getting worse. I grabbed the suspect out of the seat, to see if he was wearing any more explosives,' Schuringa told CNN. 'The cabin crew came with fire extinguishers and ... I helped put out the fire.'

   Schuringa and a flight attendant then grabbed Abdulmutallab and dragged him to the first-class section, where 'we stripped him ... to make sure he had nothing else,' Schuringa said.

   The incident bore chilling resemblance to the December, 2001 attempt by Briton Richard Reid to set fire to his PETN-filled shoes on board an American Airlines plane from Paris to Miami. Reid was also subdued by passengers after flight attendants noticed he was setting fire to his shoelaces but were powerless to stop him.

   Abdulmutallab had boarded the plane in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and tried near the end of the nine-hour-flight to detonate the explosive as the plane approached the airport on Friday.

   The FBI identified the substance as PETN, or pentaerythritol.

   At the court session, Abdulmutallab wore a bandages around his right hand and left thumb, spoke in English, and told the district attorney that he could not afford to pay for an attorney, according to a pool reporter who attended the session.

   The reporter described him as 'baby-faced,' thin, very young looking and polite. He smiled and said he was feeling better on Saturday, the day after the attack.

   Abdulmutallab's father in Nigeria, a former government minister and bank official, said he had tipped the US embassy six months ago about suspicions he had about his son, Nigeria's newspaper ThisDay reported.

   It was not clear if Abdulmutallab had connections to the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Officials told The New York Times that the suspect had insisted he obtained PETN and a syringe that were sewn into his underwear from a bomb expert in Yemen associated with Al Qaeda.

   The Washington-based Intel Center, which monitors terrorism activity, suggested the attack could have been in retaliation for an airstrike earlier this month on a terrorist training camp in Abyan province, Yemen.

   British police have searched Abdulmutallab's apartment in London's West End, near Oxford Circus.

   US justice officials, who interviewed passengers and crew of Flight 253 afterwards, said Abdulmutallab had gone to the bathroom for about 20 minutes. When he returned to his seat, he complained of stomachache and pulled a blanket over his lap.

   'Passengers then heard popping noises similar to firecrackers, smelled an odor, and some observed Abdulmutallab's pants leg and the wall of the airplane on fire,' the statement said.

   FBI agents recovered apparent remnants of a syringe from the vicinity of Abdulmutallab's seat, believed to have been part of the device, justice officials said in a statement.

   Passenger screening measures were tightened worldwide, from Britain to Taiwan, and the European Union said it would review safety rules.

   US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she was 'grateful' to the passengers and crew 'who reacted quickly and heroically to an incident that could have had tragic results.'

   She warned international and domestic travellers to allow extra time to clear increased security. She said new measures would be 'unpredictable.'

   Passengers told broadcasters that they were newly forbidden to leave their seats or have blankets and pillows in the final hour of the flight. Other reports said that the GPS systems often displayed on viewing screens in passenger planes were shut off to deny passengers orientation about the progress or position of the plane.

'This alleged attack on a US airplane on Christmas Day shows that we must remain vigilant in the fight against terrorism at all times,' Attorney General Eric Holder said.