Nigerian underwear bomber sentenced to life
Detroit, US, 17 Feb – (ANA) - A Nigerian man accused of trying to bomb a US-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009 has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 25, pleaded guilty to attempting to blow up a commercial plane as a would-be suicide mission for al-Qaeda.
His family quickly called on the US government to review the sentence.
Abdulmutallab was badly burned when a bomb sewn into his underwear failed to detonate fully, prosecutors said.
Almost 300 people were on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
Some of the passengers from the flight were in the courtroom as Federal Judge Nancy Edmunds announced the sentence.
"This was an act of terrorism that cannot be quibbled with," Judge Edmunds said, as she imposed the maximum sentence.
The son of a Nigerian banker and a former engineering student at University College London, Abdulmutallab faced eight counts against him, including terrorism and attempted murder.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a militant group based in Yemen, said it was behind the attempted attack. (ANA)
FA/ANA/17 February 2012-------