Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the man who smuggled and attempted to ignite a bomb from his underwear abroad a commercial airliner in Detroit, MI on Christmas Day in 2009, has been sentenced to life in prison. The bomber entered a Detroit courtroom on Thursday with free hands, as U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds ordered a life sentence. Prosecutors reported that the 25-year-old Nigerian was “an unrepentant would-be mass murderer, who views his crimes as divinely inspired and blessed.”
Aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, AbdulMutallab, who has been held at a Michigan federal prison since 2009, attempted to detonate the bomb, but the device failed. In what witnesses describe as the sound of a firecracker, the bomber became enveloped in a fireball that spread to the wall and carpeting of the plane. Witnesses reported that four passengers quickly restrained him and put out the fire and he was then escorted to the first-class section of the plane and taken into custody by authorities when the plane landed. In a statement, AbdulMutallab said, “I carried with me an explosive device to avenge the killing of innocent Muslims,” and the failed plot was in retaliation for “U.S. tyranny and oppression of Muslims.” U.S. officials reported the terror group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula provoked the failed attack. There were 289 people on the flight.
