Abdulmutallab Gets Life in Prison

Underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who tried to blow up Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day in 2009 has been sentenced to life imprisonment without option of parole.

Don’t Sentence me to Life, Abdulmutallab Pleads

Abdulmutallab, 25, pleaded guilty in a Federal Court in October 2011 of trying to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear as part of a plot orchestrated by al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

He is due to be sentenced on Thursday in Detroit and faces up to life in prison for the bombing attempt aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit that had 289 people on board.

His lawyer Anthony Chambers argued that the mandatory life sentence required under US law for some of the crimes he admitted to committing was unconstitutional, particularly because no one was seriously hurt during the bombing attempt.

Abdulmutallab Pleads Guilty to all 8 Charges

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a US-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009, saying he had sought to avenge the killing of innocent Muslims.

"I am guilty of this count in US law but not in the Koran," the 25-year-old Nigerian said as he confessed to trying to kill 289 people on a packed transatlantic airliner using explosives hidden in his underwear. 

"The United States should be warned that if they continue and persist in promoting the blasphemy of Mohammed and the US continues to kill and support those who kill innocent Muslims then the US should await a great calamity through the hands of the Mujahedeen... or God."

Abdulmutallab faces a mandatory life in prison. The charges include conspiring to commit terrorism and using a weapon of mass destruction.