Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The man accused of the Christmas 2009 attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane with explosives hidden in his underwear wanted “to be a martyr,” a prosecutor told jurors today as his terrorism trial began.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 24, is accused of trying to detonate explosives in his underwear as Northwest Airlines Flight 253, with 279 passengers and 11 crew members, approached Detroit on Dec. 25, 2009. He set fire to his clothing and a wall before passengers subdued him, prosecutors said. Northwest is a unit of Delta Air Lines Inc.
The flight from the Netherlands was carrying children, military personnel and other passengers, many coming to the U.S. for the holidays, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel told the jury.
“All the passengers had plans to be there, except for one,” Tukel said, referring to the defendant. “His mission, his goal, his sole reason for being on Flight 253 was to blow it up, to kill all the other passengers.”
Abdulmutallab, who wore a bluish-gray tunic adorned with white and gold running below his waist in Detroit federal court today, faces eight terrorism-related counts in, including attempted murder and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. Abdulmutallab, a native of Nigeria, traveled to Yemen to become involved in a “violent jihad on behalf of al- Qaeda” and practiced detonating explosives before the failed attack, the U.S. claims.
2010 Indictment
There were more than two dozen interested parties sitting in an overflow area outside the courtroom.
“Abdulmutallab boarded Flight 253 wearing the bomb concealed in his underwear,” prosecutors said in a January 2010 indictment. “Abdulmutallab’s purpose in taking the bomb on board Flight 253 was to detonate it during flight, causing the plane to crash and thereby kill all passengers on board.”
The attempted bombing set off heightened security measures at U.S. airports. In January 2010 President Barack Obama ordered U.S. agencies to set clearer lines of responsibility for pursuing terrorism threats and to streamline criteria for adding names to government watch lists.
Watch List
Abdulmutallab was on the government’s Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, which names about 550,000 individuals with possible terrorist links. He hadn’t been moved from this database to narrower terrorism watch lists including a “selectee” list of about 14,000 names that triggers additional screening at airports or to the “No Fly” list of about 4,000 names, U.S. officials said last year.
Government officials say the attack on the Northwest flight was masterminded by Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Islamic cleric who was killed last month in an American missile attack in Yemen.
The defendant, who will represent himself at the trial, faces a life sentence if convicted. Abdulmutallab, who has pleaded not guilty, hasn’t yet revealed his defense. His arguments may include a claim that the explosives were insufficient to blow up the plane, a lawyer assigned to help Abdulmutallab at the trial has said.
A jury of three men and nine women was selected last week for the trial before U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds.
According to prosecutors, Abdulmutallab smuggled chemicals in his underwear onto the Northwest jet in the Netherlands, intending to combine them into a bomb.
Firecrackers
As the plane approached Detroit, he went into the bathroom for 20 minutes, covered himself with a blanket as he came out, and then tried to set off the explosive, FBI Agent Theodore Peissig said in court papers.
Passengers, hearing noises similar to firecrackers, noticed flames on Abdulmutallab’s pants leg and an airplane wall, Peissig said. They subdued Abdulmutallab and put out the blaze, he said.
After the flight landed, Abdulmutallab told authorities “that he had been acting on behalf of al-Qaeda,” prosecutors said in Aug. 26 court papers.
Abdulmutallab’s decision to represent himself makes this trial different from other terrorism cases, said Marcellus McRae, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Los Angeles and a former federal prosecutor. Detroit lawyer Anthony Chambers will serve as “standby counsel” to assist Abdulmutallab during the trial.
‘Osama is Alive’
“One of the challenges here is making sure that the defendant does not use this trial as a means to vet his political views.” McRae said in an interview. “This is not an intellectual debate or an opportunity for him to make a stump speech.”
The judge will need to balance Abdulmutallab’s right to represent himself against the integrity of the judicial process, McRae said. Before jury selection began last week, Edmunds told Abdulmutallab to don a dress shirt instead of the long white T- shirt he wore to court.
Abdulmutallab muttered at a hearing last month, “Osama is alive,” a reference to Osama Bin Laden, who was killed in May. He made a similar reference at jury selection to another now- dead al-Qaeda leader.
Such “outbursts” won’t aid Abdulmutallab at the trial, McRae said. “If his objective is to defend himself, he’ll alienate the jury,” he said. “If he’s trying to send a message, they’re not going to hear it.”
Chambers, the standby counsel, was appointed to the case after Abdulmutallab fired his court-appointed lawyers last year. Chambers filed pretrial legal motions on Abdulmutallab’s behalf, questioned witnesses at a pretrial hearing and advised Abdulmutallab on law and procedures.
The case is U.S. v. Abdulmutallab, 10-cr-20005, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit).
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