Hobbled by leg irons, a young Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a US plane on Christmas Day pleaded not guilty during his first court appearance amid heightened security.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, spoke softly from the dock on Friday to confirm his name, how it was spelled and his age. His expression flat, his eyes averted from the gathered crowd, he said he understood the six charges against him.
His court-appointed lawyer, Miriam Siefer, entered the plea of not guilty to all six charges, including attempted murder of 290 people on board the plane and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction. He faces life imprisonment if convicted.
PHOTO: AFP
“At this time our client would like to enter a plea of not guilty,” Siefer said, but added: “We have — with our client’s consent — consented to detention.”
Abdulmutallab, son of a prominent Nigerian banker, was arrested after the botched al-Qaeda plot, in which explosives allegedly stitched into his underwear failed to detonate aboard a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
He was badly burned when the device sparked a fire.
Asked if he had taken any medication in the past 24 hours, he said: “Yes. Painkillers,” holding his left hip.
It was not US intelligence that thwarted the attack, but passengers and crew, who tackled and restrained Abdulmutallab before he was escorted off the plane.
The foiled bombing triggered global alarm, leading the US to adopt stringent new screening and security measures at airports around the world. Dozens of names have also been added to no-fly lists.
US President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered a sweeping overhaul of flawed intelligence services, which he has blamed for missing red flags that could have detected the plot.
Obama said spy agencies did not properly “connect and understand” disparate data that could have detected the plot during its planning stages by an al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.
Probes revealed that US analysts knew Abdulmutallab was an extremist and that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was plotting an attack, but did not connect the dots.
Ahead of the arraignment, US marshals helped local police secure the area around the ornate, marble-floored Theodore Levin Courthouse.
Metal barricades blocked off the street along the austere building. Inside, two bomb-sniffing dogs and their handlers had earlier checked every room and, as is now standard for US courtrooms, every visitor to the Depression-era courthouse passed through a metal detector.
A man who said he represented the Nigerian embassy but would not give his name told reporters that Abdulmutallab’s family had not attended the hearing.
Citing British intelligence officials, CBS television reported the former University College London student boasted during his interrogation that some 20 others were undergoing training to carry out similar attacks.
US officials have said Abdulmutallab has provided useful leads during interrogations with FBI and other US agents who are leading the investigation.
The head of national intelligence meanwhile named former CIA director John McLaughlin to lead a probe into US intelligence failures exposed by the Christmas Day attack and a US soldier’s November shooting rampage at a Texas army base.
Both Abdulmutallab and Major Nidal Hasan, the army psychiatrist who turned his guns on fellow service members, killing 12 soldiers and one civilian, are believed to be inspired by a radical US-born Islamic cleric now in Yemen — Anwar al-Awlaqi.
In Detroit, around 20 demonstrators stood shivering outside the courthouse holding US flags and signs declaring “Not in the name of Islam” and “Islam is against terrorism.”
Majed Moughni, who moved to the Detroit area from Lebanon, said he was worried there would be a backlash against Muslims.
“We’re trying to unite as Muslims and we’re going to eradicate all terrorism from our homes and our mosques and we’re going to send terrorists back to the caves of Afghanistan,” he said.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
RSS