16th February, 2012
A Nigerian, Farouk Abdulmutallab, is today expected to be senenced to life imprisonment by a court in the United States for his attempt to bomb a Detriot-bound aircraft on Chistmas day in 2009.
Abdulmutallab is also expected to be moved to the Florence, Colorado Maximum Security Prison where other terrorism convicts are serving their terms.
Abdulmutallab, the son of a Nigerian prominent former banker and minister, was groomed by al-Qaeda in Yemen and employed to blow up the Detriot-bound North-West Airlines Flight 253 on the fateful day but the mission was foiled as the explosive device he hid in his underwear failed to detonate.
Abdulmutallab, now referred to as the Underwear Bomber has been on trial in the US over the attempted bombing for which the al-Qaeda has since claimed responsility.
The graduate of Mechanical Engineering from the University College, London, during the first day of his trial last October, pleaded guilty to the charge, claiming; “I attempted to use an explosive device which in the US law is a weapon of mass destruction, which I call a blessed weapon to save the lives of innocent Muslims, for the US use of weapons of mass destruction on Muslim populations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and beyond.”
His court-appointed lawyer, Anthony Chambers, had some days ago, in a filed document, argued that a life sentence for Farouk Abdulmutallab will not be fair for a crime that did not hurt any passenger.
—William igenegbai