DETROIT – A federal judge yesterday ruled that the Nigerian man who pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a US airliner bound for Detroit in 2009 can face life in prison.
A bomb hidden in the underwear of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, now 25, caused a fire but failed to explode on a Delta Airlines flight carrying 289 people on December 25th, 2009.
US District Judge Nancy Edmunds, who was due to sentence Abdulmutallab in a hearing continuing yesterday afternoon, declined to consider a lesser sentence than life in prison.
In October, Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty days after his trial began, saying he wanted to avenge the killing of innocent Muslims by the United States. He has been in prison in Michigan since 2009. – (Reuters)