Abdulmutallab shouts ‘Osama’s alive’ in court



 Abdulmutallab

THE trial of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab promises to be dramatic, going by yesterday’s courtroom scene.
The 24-year old Nigerian student, who is accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day 2009, showed up for jury selection in a foul mood.
“Osama’s alive,” Abdulmutallab shouted as he entered the courtroom. “I’m forced to wear prison clothes,” he said.
Abdulmutallab, wearing khaki prison pants, a white T-shirt and a black skull cap, refused to stand when U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds, who was in another room with prospective jurors, asked him to stand with others in her courtroom several floors away.
While Edmunds briefed jurors about the allegations against him, Abdulmutallab hollered “jihad” and stared at the ceiling when she told jurors about the alleged plot to blow up the plane with a bomb in his underwear.
In September, Abdulmutallab fired his government-appointed lawyers and suggested that he wanted to plead guilty to some charges. He has said nothing about a plea since.
Anthony Chambers has said that a plea is unlikely.
“We will challenge everything,” Chambers, his legal adviser, said earlier this year, noting his client has a full understanding of his situation.
Abdulmutallab is the son of a respected businessman, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, who warned the authorities about his son’s strange ways before the incident.
An FBI agent yesterday traced the radicalisation of Abdulmutallab before he allegedly tried to blow up an airliner over Metro Detroit.
Abdulmutallab became radicalised by studying al-Qaeda on the Internet and by listening to al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, Special Agent Timothy Waters said in his testimony during a pretrial hearing in the terror case. Waters spent 50 minutes questioning Abdulmutallab at the University of Michigan Hospital following the attack.
Prosecutors are having Waters testify to combat defence claims that Abdulmutallab should not have been questioned by federal agents while under powerful pain medication at the hospital. Chambers is trying to block statements made by the suspect because agents did not read him his Miranda rights.
The testimony also shed light on the innovative bomb Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to use to destroy the plane. Abdulmutallab told Waters it was built by a bomb maker in Saudi Arabia.
At some point, Abdulmutallab left his home in Nigeria, travelled to Yemen and studied at an institute. He later drifted from mosque to mosque before meeting a like-minded individual at one particular mosque, Waters testified.
“Based on my experience, (Abdulmutallab) was being vetted” by al-Qaeda, Waters said.
Abdulmutallab was later introduced to a second man and eventually moved in with the individual.
“He stated they would sit for hours, talk about al-Qaeda, attacks on the United States and support for Osama bin Laden,” Waters testified.
Abdulmutallab was sequestered from other people while in Yemen.
In November 2009, a man approached Abdulmutallab, indicating he had built a bomb that could bypass airport security and be used to blow up an airliner, Waters said.
Waters said news of the attack launched a full-scale effort to thwart any other attacks that might be underway.
Waters spelled out the race to glean as much information as possible from Abdulmutallab, and explained the decision not to read him his so-called Miranda rights.
“Clearly, there could have been other flights in the air,” Waters said.
The intelligence community had heard of similar devices that could evade airport security and previous history — like Sept. 11, 2001 —- indicated that terror attempts came in waves.
“In my mind, I’m thinking they have this new device … they’re not going to use it one time,” Waters said.
Those thoughts then sparked a race to the University of Michigan Hospital, where Abdulmuttalab was being treated for burns.

SOURCE: Nation Newspaper, 15 September 2011. http://www.thenationonlineng.net